Happy Halloween !!!! From Washington

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Monday: We got to go carve pumpkins with the zone. It was so fun to see everyone's pumpkins. Sister Jones and I had the opportunity to go to the Ensgin Choir concert also. Oh my goodness it was amazing! Our friend Laurie came with us and the office missionaries drove us down. We saw beautiful Seattle when it is foggy and oh my goodness it was so cool, the Space Needle looked like it was floating. 

Wesnesday: We had district council and we talked about being a successful missionary and that it all comes from the right mindset. I believe that is so true. If you don't think you can you won't, but if you believe you can then you will. It was so good! Then we went and had lunch with a sister in the ward (Sister Moffett). She is the best! We have the most deep conversations with her and we leave her house with our minds blown. But it's good. We helped her with some service. We had dinner with the Pereira's and they made us this amazing Brazilian dinner with chicken and rice and amazing black beans with sausage. It was so good!

Thursday: We got to go out and meet a member in the ward. She was so sweet! So we pull up and she and her kids are in their van. She tells us to come over and then invites us to sit in the passenger seat of her van. Lol so Sister Jones and I are squished in this seat trying to have a nice conversation with this sister. It was great! All worked out! We got to go serve at the food bank and that was super fun! It started to rain so that made things exciting. 

Miracle: We go to have a lesson with a family in the ward and when we get their they have friends over. So the mom of this family invites her friend to join in the lesson! It was member missionary work at the finest. So we taught a simple Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. 

Friday: We got to go to Costco and have lunch with our friend L. She baught us lunch and it was really good! We got 3 hot dogs and 3 drinks for less than 5 bucks! Costco is the where to go!  Okay so the members in this ward are so cool! So the members we ate with were asking us what we will be wearing for the ward Halloween party. We didn't know so I threw out that my sister dressed up like an Elder one year. So the sweet sister helped us get white shirts and ties to be able to be elders for the party. It was great! 

Saturday: We saw lots of people today. Many of them were not interested and that's okay. We got to go quickly get dressed up and then our plan to be elders backfired because we don't know how to tie a tie. So we were waitresses. But everyone still thought we were elders, or women in black, or old fashion sister missionaries or those creepy twins in scary movies. Lol! It was so fun to be with the ward! They are the best! 

I hope you all have an amazing week and a Happy Halloween!!

love,

Sister Stokes 

"Do you want to be like sister Wilding or do you want to be like Jabba the hut?"

Wow, what a week, The days just seem like they are getting shorter and shorter and time is just flying by. We have been having lots of lessons with our members and it has been super fun! When you have lots of lessons, time just seems to pass you by and you don't have time for everything you need to do! But that's life. 

We had Interviews with President and Sister Wilding this week. They went great, I asked President if I could read "The Infinite Atonement" by Tad R. Callister since we are aloud to when we have 6 months left and he goes, "No, Because that would mean you only have 6 months left." Haha, then that led to a conversation about time and how it just flies. 

Funny thing as my header is what sister Jones tells me when I want to eat junk food.

Laurie:

We officially started the 15 step stop smoking program with Laurie! It is going so well! She is so determined and ready it's amazing. She has all the reasons to quit and just needs to put it to action. She has bought all the things she needs and we threw away all her ash trays and lighters and everything! It was an exciting step. She is doing really good, it hasn't been easy for her, but hard things are never easy!

We had the Russian sister come over and had dinner together! Sister Jones and I made a cake and cupcakes and it was super fun! Sister Koroleva turned 20!

We had the missions very 1st Full mission Conference this Friday with Elder Whiting of the seventy and it was amazing. It was a last minute thing that he called President Wilding and told him he's coming! But I will never forget the spirit that was felt in this conference. From the beginning, Sister Wilding could not stop crying and president was super emotional as well. After we all were seated, Elder Whiting wanted to shake all of our hands, and so we went row by row and go to shake his hand, 168 missionaries later haha. He started off by saying, "this is an Apostolic meeting and we will all receive revelation."  Oh my goodness he was right. His message was so simple, yet I learned more by the spirit in this meeting for many reasons. He talked about the Holy Ghost and how we need to know how He speaks to us, because it's like salt, we can't explain to someone else how it tastes.We need to put them in a situation where you know when you're feeling the spirit, You can ask them how they feel and confirm to them it is the spirit. We have to be worthy of having the Spirit with us. As missionaries we are given the authority to preach the gospel, but it's up to us to receive the Power, and the power comes from the Holy Ghost. All the changes that have been happening in the church are preparing us for something. Elder whiting used to cover the Asian region as a 70 and he was at the devotional with Elder Christofferson and he said something that will stick with him forever, and will now stick with me forever, "I believe what the Lord is waiting for is greater righteousness, not more wickedness." How eye opening is that! I always thought to myself, how much more wicked does the world need to get for Christ to come because it is already super bad! But that's not what he's waiting for! He is waiting for us to stop waiting around for Him to come and start doing more than we have been! It all makes so much sense now of why all the changes have been happening. 2 promises God has made that have not happened yet is the gathering of scattered Israel, and the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ. "We need to have eyes to see." We need to truly see what is happening and how important it is we start doing what we've been asked to do. Words from Elder Whiting, "Take this work so seriously, see your role in this. If not you then who? It has to be here, it has to be you. We need to elevate and accelerate the gathering of scattered Israel before Christ can come." The Lord is preparing us! I really loved how he emphasized the importance of sharing this with those around us. Why would we keep this from others? It shows faith you have faith on this message when you invite and share with others. See how this gospel has changed your life, why wouldn't it do the same to someone else? "The Tool to gather scattered Israel is the Book of Mormon." You need to make this as real to them as it is to you, truly help them see how the Book of Mormon has impacted you and the reason you turn to it for comfort and guidance. it's not just stories. Why is it so important to you? "We are the Link to help them see the relevance of the Book of Mormon." Every person has something they want to change in their life if you are aware of it or not. The power of the Book of Mormon is a tool of healing that can fix broken things. We need to introduce the Book of Mormon with the right power, don't treat it lightly." 

Sorry this is so long, I just know how important this is and I have a huge testimony on the importance of missionary work.

Our mission president is making it a priority right now to go to the ward councils and to talk about missionary efforts and us getting 20 lessons each week. Yesterday, his first Councilor in the mission presidency President Profitt came to ours because President Wilding went to 3 others yesterday, but one thing they are going to change in the future in only having dinners with members if they bring a returning member or a non member to dinner with them. They just talked a lot about utilizing the missionaries more in the ward because we are being "under used." It was really good though and I think it opened the members eyes more in the ward council to how important it is to be help missionary work.

Well, I love you all and hope you have an amazing week this week! 

Love,

Sister Stokes 

"Oh oh way oh oh way oh"

Shout out to my best friend Maren for entering the MTC last Wednesday!! I love you so much!

What An amazing week we have had here in Mill Creek WA. Let me just say, the whether the past 5 days or so has been amazing! It has been so sunny and has been in the high 50's to the high 60's! Love the sun soooo much. Also I love Refit, but the songs are just constantly in my head!

This week we had lots of lessons with members in our ward which is awesome! and even more this week! We have been striving to get 20 lessons a week and our district set a goal to get 14 this past week(which we got 15!) then 17 this week and 20 the week after! But we have 4 lessons tonight after PDAY which is way awesome, two with members and 2 with friends (Investigators).

Laurie has been making some big life changes and is impacting her in an amazing way! She has been getting rid of a lot of her stuff in her house and we have been helping her out and it has been making her excited to just start fresh because she has just been dragging a lot of the stuff she has with her for years. We are also going to start the 15 step stop smoking program with her this week and she just wants to quit so bad. She is working so hard to change her life around and it has been a miracle seeing these changes in her.

Kurt is another one of our friends we've been teaching and we had the most bomb lesson with him this week! We sit outside with him and he had a little fire pit going and it was super nice. But he has been struggling with humility and trusting in God for help, he is the kind of guy who thinks it's weak if you ask help from anybody, but he knows he needs to change, but is super hard for him to. So we just talked a lot about humility and the spirit just filled our hearts, there were a lot of moments of silence and the spirit would just bare testimony to all of us. He came up with his own commitment and told us what he needs to do, and it was to read the last chapter that we left with him, Alma 32, but not analyze it, but listen to the spirit to receive an answer. He then said, "I feel very uncomfortable right now." And we told him it was the spirit, and he's like, "I need to learn to be okay with feeling this more." So it was way awesome! He is a really cool guy, excited to move forward with him.

We had Zone Conference on Friday and they asked me to say the opening prayer. It went good, We talked all about how we can become more like the messenger (Jesus Christ). I loved the analogy Sister Wilding used about candle making. We were reading in Alma 17 and in verse 2 it talked about how the sons of Mosiah waxed stronger in their faith. She asked us what it means to wax stronger? and then she pulled out a small birthday candle. She asked us if we knew the process of candle making, she then explained that you have different colors of wax sometimes in buckets and you dip the wick into one and let it harden and then another one layer by layer until it becomes a candle. It's a long process, but the more you do it, the stronger and longer lasting your candle will be. I loved it because when you think about the purpose of a candle, it's to give off light. How long and how much light we can share with others is our goal. Do we want to be a candle that only gives off warmth and light for a minute, or a candle that gives off warmth and light for a lifetime? But it's not only about how long our light can last, but how much light we can share with others. So we need to build layer by layer and make ourselves strong in the gospel!

We went on exchanges Friday night to Saturday night and I stayed here with sister Savoy. She was my Sister Training leader while I was in Oak Harbor as well. We had such an awesome day together. We had dinner with one of her converts Eric at this nice Mexican restaurant. He is such an amazing member.

Something I learned in my studies the other day was when I was reading in Ether Chapter 2:14.

It's when the Brother of Jared and his family and friends are all just chilling at the waters edge for 4 years and had forgotten to pray to the Lord for guidance. The Lord Chastised the Brother of Jared for 3 hours, but forgave him for his sins. Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, "The Lord is truly there to chastise those whom He loves, including the spiritually preeminent. The Brother of Jared for too long had failed to pray. Even the good can become careless without the Lord’s being there to chasten. Later, the chastened Brother of Jared saw Christ!" Just thought that was something cool to ponder. 

Hope you all have an amazing week this week! love you lots!

Love,

Sister Stokes

Sister Pedersen and Sister Peterson are companions!

Maren sent me this picture of us! Miss her.