Preparing for Conference

Dear Family and Friends,

Sister Edwards and I got our haircut last week by one of the members in the stake. We got a little drastic and Sister Edwards got bangs, and the member straightened my hair for the first day, I have attached pictures :D, it was fun.

We have had a couple miracles this week with our investigators. We had a great lesson with Sandra and Dominique on Monday and were able to go back and help Sandra on Wednesday. Silvina is doing great and she came to an activity we had on Friday night and was able to meet some members of the ward and talk to them in Spanish! We also had a cool experience on Wednesday where we went with Sister Price and Redd to dinner at the house of a couple we met at Yogurtland and they were super sweet and open to hearing our message. It was fun. I love when people are open and willing to learn and are receptive to the Spirit we carry.

Like I have said before Sister Edwards and I are focusing a lot on working with the members. We spent a lot of time this week just in members homes trying to strengthen their faith and testimony in God. I was studying this morning and it really stood out to me that if the members and the missionaries are both focused on becoming better disciples of Jesus Christ we will be able to work together in unity. The missionary purpose of 'inviting others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel' should not end once a missionary is released and should not begin when a missionary gets a call. We are all united in this same purpose and when a missionaries main goal in visiting members is to help them become better disciples of Christ then the members will be able to grow and the missionary will be able to grow as well. We have a common vision of inviting and helping.

We were able to attend the Women's Broadcast on Saturday with our stake here in Rancho Cucamonga. It is always so powerful when we have the opportunity to join together as women of God's Church and learn together. I thought it was so powerful what President Uchtdorf taught. We need to know that God loves us. If we understand Him and His love we will have more of a desire to follow Him. My mission has been a time for me to really connect with my Heavenly Father and learn on a totally different level His love for me. I know God lives and I know He love me. I hope you know that as well.

I love you all and I hope you are preparing your minds and hearts to be taught by our prophet and apostles this weekend. I am looking forward to hearing their counsel and knowing what more I can do to become a better disciple of Him.

President Packer in his most recent talk "The Witness" states that in times of uncertainty we are more able to focus on the things that matter most. For me this is a time of uncertainty (transfer calls are this week), but for each of us we are living in a constant life of uncertainty. I know that as I have focused more on my need to develop my relationship with God and become a better disciple of Jesus Christ I will not have to fear being transferred with regrets of not doing my best. I pray that each of you spend each day striving to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ so you can also live your life with no regrets.

I love you and am always praying for you!

Love,
Sister Cook

Temple Miracles

September 22, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

It hasn't been long since you have heard from me so there isn't too much to report, but there are ALWAYS miracles in the life of a missionary.

On Friday as Sister Edwards and I were weekly planning we were brainstorming different ideas to help the ward become more united while also introducing our investigators to members and we decided that we are going to start a weekly activity sponsored by the missionaries. Our first one will be this Friday and we are going to play Human Bowling (you set up 2 liter soda bottles and push people on a skateboard into the bottles to knock them over) we are super excited! We were able to talk to our ward mission leader and he thinks it is a great idea, I will let you know next week how it turns out.  Saturday was fun because we were able to help one of the less active's in the ward with her daughters car wash. We were there for almost 4 hours and probably washed about 30 cars, it was fun! Then Sister Quezada took us out to lunch afterwards at a Thai Vegan restaurant; I got a tofu curry and it was delicious. 

That night we had a cool miracle as well. We decided to go get Frozen Yogurt with Sister Price and Sister Redd at a place in our area and as we were eating our ice cream a man in the table next to us just leans over and asks if we are church people. We quickly responded that we were and he immediately started asking questions about our church and about our mission experiences. It was really fun to sit and talk to him and his wife for awhile about what we believe. Yesterday in church we had our Primary Program so we invited him to come and he said he might come, but then he gave us his address and invited us over to have dinner and a lesson. It was so cool! We are really excited to go back on Wednesday and share more about our faith! We have had a lot of experiences like that where God just drops people into our laps! I feel so blessed!

Like I said, yesterday was our Primary Program. It was so cute, I love hearing the testimonies and songs of the little children.  We were combined with the Spanish Branch that also meets in our building so our chapel was packed! It was cool. They had invited a less active couple to give the prayers at church, but when they came in they sat right in the front row and somehow the Bishopric didn't notice they were there. It was really funny to talk to the wife who was supposed to give the opening prayer later because she joked that who knew the best place to hide from the Bishopric was the front row! There have been a lot of less active families coming to church the last couple weeks, it has been cool. Another miracle at church was that as we were sitting waiting for church to start I noticed a lady walk in the the chapel and sit down, at first I didn't remember exactly how I knew her, but then I remembered that she was from Upland 5th ward. Last December I had made tamales with this member at her house and then she just walked right into our chapel! She hasn't been to church in probably months, so it was really exciting to be there when she finally came! Sister Edwards was laughing at me because I was getting so excited. :D

Later on Sunday we had a lesson with a 17 year old less active in the ward. She is so sweet but just never was taught from her childhood the truth about God. Both her parents are members, but they never made church a priority. It feel like we are starting at ground 1 with her and it is sad that she has such a small understanding of her Heavenly Father. It was cool to go to our dinner appointment right after and have the 7 year old son describe Jesus as his hero because it reminded me how powerful it really can be to be brought up with an understanding of Christ and how critical it becomes during your teenage years to know about Him.  It makes me so grateful for my own parents and their wonderful example to me of how to keep Christ the center of a home.

All in all it has been a wonderful couple of days. God is pouring out blessings upon us and I know it is because of all those who are praying for me. Thank you so much for all your prayers, guidance and support, I know it is helping me!

Love,
Sister Cook 

Temple

September 18, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

We went to the Temple this morning! It was beautiful. I love the Temple so much. We have been looking forward to this for so long and it was just as good as I had hoped.

We have had a pretty good week. Like I said last week, things have been pretty slow and we have been having to get creative. We have been baking a lot the last couple days. We have made chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, banana bread, and today we helped a member make jam. It has been fun. I forgot how much I like to cook. It has been fun to bring people these treats and see them get so excited about it. It makes me happy to be able to put a smile on people's faces.

I want to use the rest of this e-mail and just list some of the miracles we have been seeing recently:

-a member in a different ward offered to buy us dinner on Monday night

-we were able to help our investigator Silvina clean up her house after her dad had been visiting for a week, then she invited us over for dinner today!

-we were inside helping a member on Tuesday when it rained really hard

-we were able to get in and see a less active family we haven't been able to see in awhile

-the elders serving in the ward found an investigator!!!!!!!!

-we met another less active we have never met before and who is usually really mean to the missionaries, but she talked with us for awhile

-one of the members had an extra copy of the Friend that we were able to bring to our investigator Dominique

-we were able to find things to do inside when it was 109* outside

-Tammi came to a baptism for one of the members of a different ward so we were able to go as well

-Our ward council finally created a vision for the ward - something for us to work toward together :D (we have been working on this for the last 3-4 weeks)

- Sister Edwards has been inspiring me to be even better than I have been before - I have a miracle of a companion :D

We have been seeing a lot of miracles even in the midst of the heat and slowness of the work. It has been hard, but God is providing us ways to stay busy and productive.

Please keep me and Sister Edwards and our investigators Silvina, Sandra, and Dominique, plus Tammi in your prayers; we need it.

I love you all and I am so grateful for all your prayers and support.

Love,

Sister Cook

Preparing for the Temple

Dear Family and Friends,

Next week we get to go to the Temple! So just be prepared when you don't hear from me next Monday that it is only because I get to go to the Temple that week. Sister Edwards and I are SUPER excited! I haven't been to the Temple since January so we have been looking forward to this for awhile!

This past week has been fun. We started the week very busy, as you know from my e-mail last week. Tuesday was packed! But, the rest of the week seemed to go by very slowly. We started to get pretty creative in our ideas of how to stay busy. We heart attacked most of our investigators and drew scriptures in chalk on some of the less active's in the ward driveways. We tried just walking around the outdoor mall in our area to see if anyone would talk to us, we made cute "sister missionary" thank you cards (I will attach a picture :D), and we spent a couple hours on Saturday just walking. It has been fun trying to be creative and stay busy. This coming week we should have a little more appointments so we won't have to spend so much time in creative thinking mode.

I have been studying a lot the past week from April Conference and I have realized how important it is for us to always be growing and progressing in our knowledge of our Savior and our ways to protect ourselves from the temptations of Satan. If we still only did what we were taught 10 years ago, we would not be strong enough to avoid the temptations today, but we have to constantly becoming stronger and stronger in our testimony of our Savior. It is amazing that we have every 6 months the opportunity to learn from those who know how to stay strong. I am very excited for Conference in a couple weeks.

I know that our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet of God. He really has been called and set apart to teach us what God wants us to know and do today. I would invite you to start now preparing for Conference and to be taught by our leaders, it is an incredible blessing we have been given.

I am grateful for all your continued support and guidance, you are all wonderful examples to me.

Love,
Sister Cook

The Atonement is Real

Sept 2, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

I am so sorry I have to make this super short this week because we are really busy today, but I want you all to know that God is real and that the Atonement is real. I have had too many experiences this week feeling God's love and having Him reach out and help me so that I can help others. 

Please don't ever lose hope. Don't ever let Satan grasp your heart and enable you to feel that there is no light at the end of the tunnel because I am here to tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how hard your life may seem God is there for you and will always help you. This Mormon Message teaches so plainly how I have been feeling the last couple of days regarding the people we have been trying to help. We need hope. We need to remember that we are children of God and we need to remember that Christ is there. I know and cannot deny that God loves each and every one of His children.

I know this Church is God's true church here on the earth today. I know that we have a living prophet. I am so grateful for my knowledge and testimony in Christ.

Love,
Sister Cook

Perspective

Dear Family and Friends,

Drumroll please.... I am writing you today from ..... the Rancho Cucamonga Library; meaning nothing changed with transfers. Sister Edwards and I are still together in the Terra Vista ward. I am excited for this new transfer together because we have A LOT of work to do. We had an amazing week and some of the most miracles I have ever seen in one week this past week and now we have to build from that. There is a lot to do and I am glad I get to still be here with Sister Edwards and get work done.

So I bet you are all dying to hear about how it went with Elder Russell M. Nelson on Saturday. It was amazing. He is most definitely a servant of the Lord and works as an instrument in His hands. He taught us about a lot of different things and, for me, just really allowed me to be taught by the Spirit. I learned a lot about obedience, but also about the power of example. He told us that the way a mission president and his wife is judged by the first presidency as successful or not is the percentage of their missionaries grandkids that get sealed in the Temple. I was surprised by that at first, but he was really just teaching us that the influence and example of a good leader does not just affect those they lead, but is measured by how well they help people change. It can also be said that the measure of a good missionary is not just in the number of people they help get to the waters of baptism, but in the number of people they influence who gain exaltation. My job does not just effect here and now, it effects eternity. Something else Elder Nelson taught us was the importance of families. He counseled us that if we as sisters ever get proposed to we are supposed to say "No" unless we know for a fact that the young man loves God more than he loves us. I have been taught that same principle from my own parents since I was young, so it was powerful to hear an Apostle of the Lord teach the exact same thing. He taught us so much and it is hard to summarize it all here, but one last important thing that he emphasized is the need to know who we really are. He asked the question "Who here has Hebrew heritage or is from Egypt?" No one raised their hand. He turned to our mission president and said, this is one of the biggest problems among people these days, they do not know who they are. He proceeded to teach us about Abraham and Isaac and Israel. He asked who of us have our patriarchal blessing and are a from a tribe of Israel. We all raised our hands and then he informed us that since we are part of those tribes we are consequently from Egypt and are Hebrew. There is power in knowing who we are. We have a rich heritage and as Hebrew's we are part of God's chosen people. It was powerful to learn how blessed I really am.

Other than meeting an Apostle of the Lord this week has been amazing. We went back up to Mt. Baldy on Tuesday and it was amazing to see the progress that has been made over the last couple weeks in cleaning up the mud. The house that I worked at the first two times we went up was the same house I worked at this past week as well. The basement was completely clean and the house looked great. We worked on the backyard in trying to get the mud back near the roots of the trees so the trees wouldn't fall over. It was great. I am always exhausted after going up there, but it always feels really good to help. On Wednesday our District Leader related Christlike Attributes to a pizza and brought all the toppings to make pizza, so after district meeting we all ate pizza together. It was really fun. We have had a couple amazing lessons with Silvina. She is still doing really well, the Spirit is always so strong whenever we meet with her. We also picked up a former investigator named Arthur, he wants us to read the Book of Mormon with him. We decided that we are going to send the Elders over there this week though. We also met with an investigator named George. He is from Egypt and has only lived here in California for a couple years. He met missionaries a couple years ago and even came to church. He works on Sundays now and we are trying to help him find a new job so he can come to church here. He is pretty cool, we are trying to learn Coptic from him :D. We also had a miracle happen where the elders serving in the ward over from us started teaching some investigators then later found out they live in our area so on Saturday we got 2 new investigators and one has accepted a baptismal date for Sept. 20th! We are really excited. Another huge miracle of the week is that last Monday we got a call from the assistants who had ran into a less active from our ward at Subway. She told them that she wanted to come back to church, so they told us and Friday we were finally able to make contact with her. She is amazing. She came to the fireside Friday night where I played the piano and we have a lesson scheduled with her for tomorrow! She even called last night to apologize for not being able to make it to church because a friend unexpectedly came into town. It is quite a miracle! The Lord is truly hastening His work and I am so grateful to be part of it!

We have a good week planned and a lot going on. I think I will explain now why I used the title today of "Perspective" for this e-mail. I realized on Sunday after we talked to our ward mission leader that there were a lot of people we didn't see this week and a lot of things that we did not get done and it would be really easy to look back on this week as a failure. We had a lot of cancelled appointments and unopened doors, but instead I see this week as one of the best on my mission, because I have been able to have a small portion of God's eternal perspective. We have been able to accomplish a lot and Sister Edwards and I have worked really hard, and even though we didn't do everything that we had wanted, we still accomplished a lot. It is such a blessing to know that God can help us have that perspective. God can help us understand what truly matters most.

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week and can find opportunities to serve and share the Light of Christ.

Matthew 5:14-16
 14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Love,
Sister Cook

Fulfilling My Vision

Dear Family and Friends,

Time sure does fly. It feels like just yesterday I was at the library e-mailing home. This week has been great. We have been seeing progress every day. Sister Edwards and I feel so blessed to be here in this ward at this time, there is so much to do and so many people to help.

We are still working with Silvina. We saw her twice this week and she is doing great. She didn't make it to church yesterday, she has been sick the last couple of days, but she is progressing really well. She is so willing to do anything we ask her to do and so eager for more knowledge and understanding of Christ. We have another lesson with her tomorrow night, she is amazing. Keep her in your prayers.

We have been focusing a lot this past week on helping the members. We had two ward activities this week - a wonderful Relief Society activity on Tuesday night where we learned about how to be happy - and an Elders Quorum Barbeque on Friday which was super fun! We have been trying to work as the ward mission to link all these activities into one common goal that everyone in the ward council can help work towards. It has been an adventure trying to get everything organized and all the ward council members on board. If this works it is going to really unite our ward and the work is going to move so much faster. There is so much potential in this ward and Sister Edwards and I are excited to help the members do all that God has in store for them.

We also had zone conference this past week! It feels sometimes like we have meetings all the time, but this one was especially needed. We learned from President and Sister Hobbs and all the zone leaders in Rancho and Chino. It was a great meeting and I love being able to get together with the other missionaries in the area and learn together about how to improve the mission. President keeps emphasizing the need for us to be more and more obedient and rid ourselves of our casual nature so we can be prepared for all that God wants us to do within the next little while (President Nelson coming, getting iPads soon, and just in general hastening the work). 

Speaking of President Nelson coming I want to share with you some of the exciting things we have coming up this week:

Mon: lesson with a new investigator
Tues: Going BACK to Mt. Baldy to help with the clean up efforts again! We also have a lesson with Silvina, and another less active we have been working with.

Wednesday: District Meeting and splits with the Relief Society

Thursday: lesson with another less active we are excited to be working with

Friday: Becoming a Missionary Fireside where I have been asked to accompany two elders singing Lord, I Would Follow Thee (we found a super cool arrangement that I have been practicing the last couple days - please pray that I will learn it before Friday! I am super nervous).
Saturday: Mission Conference with and APOSTLE!!!!! :D

Sunday: Sister Edwards and I doing a musical number in sacrament meeting (the same song from Friday).

It is going to be a GREAT week!!!! I am really excited.

I hope you all have an equally amazing week striving to be in the service of our God. I know He will bless you beyond what you can even imagine if you put Him first and strive to serve Him with all your heart, might, mind and strength.

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

Love,
Sister Cook

PS This week is transfers, so I might be e-mailing from a new place next week.