Another week in the life of Sister Cook

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has gone well. Sister Price is no longer sick, she did pass on her illness to me, but luckily since I have been taking plenty of Vitamin C and have been gargling with Listerine about 5 times a day, I haven't been slowed down. We were able to do a lot of work this week and it has been great.

Our district set a goal to find 3 new investigators as a district this past week. We found one on Tuesday (she is the wife of a less active member who has been coming back to church! We are really excited!), and when we were talking to our district leader on Friday night he informed us that as a district we were at 9 new investigators for the week! It was so exciting to hear that! Sister Price and I have been working on setting goals that are realistic and it was cool to see that when we set a goal we all believed we could achieve (3 new investigators) He blessed us with so much more! My testimony that the Lord is really hastening His work has improved so much over the past couple of days!

We have had  a wonderful week with working with our recent converts and less active members. We were able to find some lost members (those who live in our area, but we don't have their records on our directory), teach a lot of lessons, and bring the Spirit into a lot of their homes. The miracles that I have been seeing on exchanges recently have been very closely related to our work with less actives. It has been incredible.

We had two exchanges this week. I got to spend the day in Hesperia on Wednesday. We set our goals and plans Tuesday night and it was really cool to see that most of our plans changed, but we were able to still achieve all of our goals! It was a good day. On Friday I was able to spend the day with Sister Richardson (my companion from last August- November). It was great to be with her again and feel of her Spirit and faith.

In Church yesterday the Young Women in the ward put on a Program for Sacrament Meeting. They had many of the young women get up and give short talks and they sang a couple musical numbers. Two of the young women sang one of my favorite songs "I Walk By Faith" by Janice Kapp Perry and then they sang the theme songs from the last two years as well (Come Unto Christ, and Stand in Holy Places). It was beautiful!

All in all, it has been a good week. I have learned a lot and been able to help and invite others to come unto Christ and it has been wonderful!

I love you all and I hope you find an opportunity this week to share with someone your testimony of Jesus Christ.

Love,
Sister Cook

A week of hope!

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been amazing! Sister Price and I have been having a lot of fun and we even saw some miracles, actually, we saw a lot of miracles.  We were able to achieve almost all our goals for the week and we ended it with a fantasticSunday.

We have been working with a part member family a lot recently and this past week we have seen a lot of progress with one of the daughters. She is 13 and has been coming to church the past couple weeks when we have been able to find a ride for her and just last night we invited her to be baptized on June 14th and she said YES! We are so excited, so keep Angela in your prayers!

We have also been working closely with a lot of our recent converts. There is one, her name is Vanessa, who we have been going over and reading the Book of Mormon with. Right now we are in 2 Nephi 17ish and it has been such a miracle to pray at the beginning of personal study to understand what Isaiah is saying and by the end be able to explain to Sister Price and then Vanessa what Isaiah is telling us and how to apply it in our lives.

We also had Zone Conference this week. We were able to learn from President and Sister Hobbs, his assistants and 1st counselor about how to be better missionaries. It is always great to be able to hear from our leaders how we can become better and then set goals to improve. It is all about becoming more like Christ and by following and being obedient to our leaders we can learn what we need to do to become more like Him.

We were asked to read Elder Bednar's talk Converted Unto the Lord to prepare for Zone Conference and as I have studied that talk and thought about what it means and have taught some of our members about it, it is incredible to see that we are here on this earth to really be converted unto Him. Every day we have choices we can make to choose whether to grow closer unto Him or further away. By consistently choosing to come closer to Him, we are converted day by day. The Lord has perfect timing, and conversion takes a long time. I know I have been discouraged sometimes when I haven't changed as much as I want over a specific time period; but, the Lord knows how much we can change and all that we can do and He will give us enough time to do everything we need to do.

We talked at church on Sunday about hope. The high council speaker focused his talk on the subject and then in Gospel Principles we tied the subject of repentance to hope as well. When we have that hope in a brighter future, and when we understand that our faith in Jesus Christ can give us hope it makes following Him so much easier. 

I have hope that someday I will live with God again. I hope that at that day I will have done my best so He will tell me "Well done."  I hope that I can share the light and joy of the Gospel with as many people as possible. And, I hope you will do the same.

I love you all, and I am so grateful for your love and support!

Love,
Sister Cook

Happy Mother's Day

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been crazy! We spent a lot of time in meetings, with the sisters, or in the apartment while Sister Price rested (she has been sick since Friday). We had Zone Meeting this past Tuesday and Sister Price and I were able to do a training on the Book of Mormon. It has helped me so much to renew my own testimony of the Book of Mormon and remember how powerful the Book of Mormon really is. Later that same night we had a lesson with a less active family and talked with them about the power of the Book of Mormon and showed the Mormon Message Origin and they commented that that was exactly what they needed to hear. It was really great to be able to see the Spirit working through us to teach them the lesson they needed to hear. I know that the Book of Mormon can change people's lives.

We were able to spend a lot of time this week with different sisters in our zone's. On Wednesday I was on an exchange with a fairly new sister and we were able to do a lot of service in our area and have a really busy day - it was fantastic. We were also planning to have an exchange on Friday so we exchanged Thursday night, but Sister Price called me in the morning saying she was really sick so we exchanged back before our studies on Friday morning and were able to spend some time that day letting Sister Price rest. On our way home from our half exchange we were able to stop by and see almost all the sisters we cover, so it was a blessing in disguise that we had to exchange back so early.

On Thursday we had a short meeting with President Hobbs and he told us that our mission is gaining 5 new missionaries this week from the Ukraine mission. They have been reassigned here to finish their mission due to all the turmoil going on there in Ukraine. There are 3 new sisters and 2 elders and we just found out a couple minutes ago that one of the sisters is going to be up here in Apple Valley! It would be crazy to have to be reassigned after spending so much time in a different country.

We had a great Mother's Day yesterday. We had our Bishop give the lesson during the third hour at church and he showed the Mormon Message My New Life. This one is so good. It was a good lesson to remind us about what is truly important in life and the importance of being grateful for the little things. Thanks Mom for being a great example to me! We were able to spend the day with some moms and to follow our family's tradition I sang "I Often Go Walking" pretty often. It was great.

Sister Price and I have been having a lot of fun and working hard. I am so grateful for all your wonderful examples and support and I love you all so much!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and find ways to feel more deeply the love of our Savior.

Love,

Sister Cook

The Power of the Book of Mormon

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy May everyone!  This month has started out great and I am excited to see what the rest of the month brings. We had a bunch of miracles happen this week and a lot of birthdays to celebrate as well, it has been fun.

On Wednesday we were on an exchange and the sister I was with wanted to bike, so we drove out to Silver Lakes and got our bikes and had a list of potential investigators and less actives we wanted to try and visit. We were going from one less active to another and had to bike up this pretty steep hill. About half way up the hill she was just too exhausted and couldn't go any further. She really needed some water and we hadn't brought any with us so she went to the next house that looked like someone was home and started knocking on the door to ask for water. A lady came to the window, noticed we were missionaries (she thought we were Jehovah's Witness) and walked away. The sister was really desperate for some water so she just sat on the floor and caught her breath while we rang the door bell again. Finally someone opened the door and I asked them for some water, they felt so bad for us that they quickly let us in and gave us some water. We ended up being able to talk to the lady who owned the house and she told us about how she has been having a hard time since her parents have both recently passed away. We were able to bear our testimonies and a scripture with her and it was truly incredible to feel the Spirit testify to her of what we said. She said we can come back and teach her more. I felt bad for pushing my companion so hard to make her ride even when she was exhausted, but it led to a miracle of meeting this wonderful lady.

On Thursday we were able to attend the monthly Mission Leadership Council and I was amazed at how many of the questions that have been on my mind recently were answered. I love those meetings because the Spirit is so strong and can speak so clearly to my heart.

Saturday we were able to go with our zone and the other Victorville zone to a service project. We spent from 6:30am - 1pm at a Off Highway Vehicle Recreation Park (basically a huge flat piece of land where you can drive really fast) pulling weeds, picking up rocks and trash. It was great to spend so much time outside doing service. I love service! It is kind of funny though that we were in the middle of a great desert pulling up the vegetation - it seems that we should have been planting it instead of killing it!  Later that day we were able to go to the baptism of two young boys into our ward. The elders had been teaching them and they asked me to play the piano so we were able to go and feel the great spirit there. It was incredible. It was also Sister Price's birthday on Saturday, so of course we had to celebrate that with a little party and some cupcakes. Birthdays on the mission are so much fun :D

Sunday we were able to have a great first lesson with a part member family that we are going to start teaching. It was great to testify of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and feel the Spirit fill the room.

I am so very grateful for this opportunity to serve and bear my testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon. Sister Price shared a really cool insight this morning during our studies that the Book of Mormon is our gateway to heaven. It is our way to communicate directly with God and if we ever need to hear from Him or understand direction from Him we can just open the Book of Mormon and learn straight from God. I testify to what she said, the Book of Mormon is our direct means to communicate from God. I am so grateful for the wonderful blessing it has been in my life and the opportunity I have to share it with those around me!

I love you all and I hope you have a great week and a happy Mother's Day!

Love,
Sister Cook

New Transfer, New Sisters Helping Hands

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been a great week. Sister Price and I are excited to spend another transfer together and she will officially at the end of the transfer be my longest companion (2 transfers + 2 weeks). We have a lot of new sisters in the zones here in the desert and I am super excited to be working with them. It is going to be fun. We figured out exchanges for the transfer and might possibly do 3 in one week (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) which would be crazy, but fun.

We had a busy week this week. We spent a couple days with the new sisters, either having lunch with them or just answering their questions. We also got to teach part of Young Women's on Tuesday. Our subject was Agency and Accountability because it was for their standards night. It was a good experience. The young women in the ward are great.

We were able to have another lesson with Jessica this week. She is great and we are still planning to try and have a tour with her of the church to help her not be as scared of coming. We had another one of our investigators, Angela, come to church yesterday! It was a great day at church!

Saturday we were able to help with the Mormon Helping Hands! It was my first time helping and getting to wear one of the yellow vests, it was pretty exciting. We helped spread some new wood chips in a park and cut mistletoe out of some treas. I never knew mistletoe grew as a fungus in the trees, but it does! 

We had some great lessons and I am still learning a lot this past week. I love being a missionary and being able to serve the Lord. He is protecting me and really helping me become the best I can.

I love you all and I want you all to know that I know this church is true!

Love,
Sister Cook

Happy Easter

APRIL 21, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Easter! We had a good Easter being able to visit all the sisters and wish them a happy Easter and say goodbye to some that were leaving with transfers. We gave them each an egg with a peep inside and a note. It was fun, I told Sister Price that days like that are when it is fun to have our assignment.

We had a couple really cool miracles happen this week! My testimony of miracles happening on exchanges increased exponentially this week. First on my exchange on Wednesday we had to walk most of the day since the sisters are running low on miles in their car and right as we leave the apartment a member of their ward is stopped at a stop light and yells if we want a ride, it was incredible. She gave us a ride the furthest distance we were going to have to walk! Then on Thursday in our lesson with our investigator Jessica we had an amazing lesson about the commandments to pray often, study our scriptures and obey God, then at the end of the lesson she said the closing prayer and it was incredible! Then on Saturday on another exchange we were meeting with our bishop in the morning and he had mentioned that a lady had called him asking about the ward because she just moved in and then Sister Havens (who was my companion for the day) freaked out because she knew the lady! So of course we quickly went to go visit her as soon as we could and she is amazing. I am really excited to work with her. And as we were there we mentioned that my normal companions name is Sister Price and she paused and then said, that is crazy because the first missionaries I ever met were named Sister Cook and Sister Price! It was really cool. Then later that day we were trying to visit some other less active's in the ward and at first couldn't find one address so we went to the next one and had a good conversation with this less active lady and later found out that our Bishop wanted us to try and visit her as well. It was an incredible day seeing the effects of following promptings and receiving revelation, while also asking our Bishop for people he wanted us to see. Miracles happen on exchanges!

So transfer news came and Sister Price and I are staying together another 6 weeks so she will be my longest companion after this transfer. (2 transfers plus the 2 weeks in the MTC :D). Not very many things have changed this transfer for the sisters we are over or our zone. I am excited for a new transfer though and the opportunity to keep trying hard and working in this ward!

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

Love,
Sister Cook

These pictures are of fairy houses Sis Cook made at a member's home :D

Something to Look Forward to

APRIL 14, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

What a great week we have ahead of us! Easter is on Sunday and I am so excited. I hope you all have heard about/seen/fell in love with already the church's Easter page easter.mormon.org and the video they released. It is amazing. Anything is possible because of Him. I hope you all get a chance to watch and share the video with everyone you know!

We have had a pretty good week. We had two exchanges this past week and I got to be an Hermana for a day on Saturday.  We didn't have any lessons because we were doing service all day, so I didn't get to use my Spanish skills, but I will keep working on them for our next exchange! The Hesperia stake does a Roadshow every two years for the youth and we were able to go and watch them perform, it was really cool, they did a great job.

Not much has changed since last week. Nicholas didn't come to church yesterday so we will have to change his baptismal date from May 3rd. Sister Price and I are borrowing bikes from one of the members to ride around in Silver Lakes and we will hopefully get a chance to ride them today - I am pretty excited. We have been working closely with the members this past week by sharing with them Elder Nielsen's talk "Hastening the Lord's Game Plan." It is incredible how much we can accomplish with the members helping us through prayer.

I hope you all have a good Easter.

I love you all,

Sister Cook

PS We have transfer calls this Saturday so with the trend I have been on I will probably be in a new place when I e-mail next week.

Pictures:

1. The ostrich farm in our area

2. The view from North Beach in Silver Lakes. It is beautiful :D