April 8, 2019 2 More Weeks :)

Good Morning America!

Have you heard the latest news report?? Our Prophet has once again called each of us to repentance, or might I say, God has. :) Isn't it so amazing we are able to repent daily and feel God's eternal forgiveness for us? Well, we better get praying on our knees with grateful hearts to Him who is always on the Job and takes no breaks. 

This has been a splendid week might I add, Lots of miracles for sure. We picked up a cute 9 year old as a friend. her name is Sienna, we are also teaching her younger Brother Noah who is 7 and preparing them for baptism in June!  Her dad told us pretty forwardly he has lost his faith 4 years ago and no longer calls himself a "Mormon," but is okay with their kids being baptized. We are working with the Mom and building her testimony, it is so sad though because you can see it makes her sad when he openly says to not call on him to answer "how the gospel has blessed him" and things like that. But they are all going to be doing the lessons as a family so I know the spirit is going to touch his heart in some way. 

18 MONTHS LAST THURSDAY! Wow, I never knew this day would arrive. How can it possibly be 18 months plus some already? Makes me sad, but happy with all the things the Lord has taught me thus far. 

We had interviews with President and Sister Wilding this week as well and it was great! I only have my exit interview now which is so sad..

After conference on Saturday, we were finishing up dinner and our Presidents wife Sister Wilding texted us and said she had some free time and wanted to see if she could come out with us for a couple hours! What a women, of coarse we said yes and she ended up spending 4 hours with us finding and teaching! The best part is she drove her nice mission Hybrid car that was so quiet you couldn't tell a difference from when it was on and when it was off! We saw so many miracles it was such a blessing. We had such great contacts with people and found awesome potential friends. We visited a women named Isabel and were able to have a great lesson with her and also a lesson with Sister Manabat who is a returning member. 

We were able to watch General conference with the Thiessens who are an older couple who are home bound. they are so funny, we love them! We got over there and they were still sleeping when we got there, but we woke them up just in time for conference :) 

Sunday we watched conference at the Walkers who I have adopted as my grandparents in Washington. The Hoopes who live right down the road and is the daughter of the Walkers invited us over for a yummy breakfast with a couple other members of the ward. It was such a great day!  

Just one little snipit from what Elder Uchtdorf said in his talk that I love, "Rejoice as you share Christ's Sufferings."

This life was prepared for us to have hard times, but we are to learn to get though them with the help of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Once we understand this, and can access this Power, we will know we can get through all life has to throw at us and know it is shaping us into the creatures God has intended us to become. 

We will have greater love for Christ if we understand a fraction of what He went through for us. 

I love you all and hope you turn to Him this week. 

Love 

Sister Stokes 

"The Lord is my light so why should I fear"

Hello once again, I feel like I was just writing an email yesterday, not sure where the time is going? But we had a full week which always feels rewarding. Both our wards are putting together a big Easter Sunday kind of how we made the Christmas Sunday a big event. So we are excited and have been handing out invitations our WML made. 

Not too much to elaborate on, we met with lots of "returning members" this week and met lots of members we don't know which was very successful. We found a lot more PMF (part member families) it really is crazy how many there are! 

We drove to Redmond for an apt. for Sister Walker and decided to drive through Seattle and cross over to get there and it was a mistake! The traffic was terrible! But it was beautiful. Redmond is such a nice area, sadly it's in the Seattle mission. 

Sorry for the short email, but hope you all have a fantastic week and an amazing conference weekend! I am soooo excited, our Prophet is on fire with the Holy Ghost and I know we are all going to receive some amazing revelation as we prepare and bring questions! I love the gospel and I know it is the way back to God. It WILL change your life and the lives of others. 

Love,

Sister Stokes 

We are reaching the "last" of things

Hope every one has been well, this has been a full week full of great things! We were able to meet with a member referral we have been long waiting for to meet with named Julia! She was the sweetest women and so normal! It was such a blessing. We met at the church and had great fellowship there and had a church tour and talked about The Book of Mormon! She was very excited to start reading it, she hasn't had much of a religious background so she said she's a "clean slate!" haha. She drove up in a Tesla and we were like holy moly, but then she told us it was her dad's and he was out of town and he told her to drive it haha, she's got some good parents let me just say hahah. Julia does Real Estate so she is super friendly and open and loves to talk. But just yesterday she told us that she is going to need to put everything on pause and told us the guy who referred her who is from Utah is more than just a friend and she thinks starting this process of learning has made things a little too real than she is ready for and said she will reach out again down the road when their ready. We are so sad! But when the time is right and hopefully it will be soon, she will learn once again. 

We also were able to pick up our new friends Bob and Shirley who are the sweetest old couple. They were a referral from our Stake President the McCall's. They are seriously so sweet and we are hoping they will be able to progress even though sometimes it doesn't seem like some things we teach fully register in their minds. They are in their 80's though so it makes it harder, but you are never too old to accept the gospel! 

LAST ZONE CONFERENCE!!!

I cannot believe I had my last zone conference as a missionary. This makes me so sad! It was super great though, like they always are! It was so weird baring my dying testimony, there were 3 other sisters and one elder in the zone conference who also are dying this transfer so they did as well. Time just doesn't slow down for nothing. 

New Missionary Training!

We finally had the new missionary training that has been a long time coming haha, when we were supposed to have it was when it snowed so they held off until the next transfer of new missionaries came in and so there was a total of 60 missionaries at this training! It was huge! The mission is so young with how many missionaries are going home and how many are training or in training. The work keeps moving forward!

On Saturday there was a Stake Relief Society activity we went to and it was all about mental health and physical health and how we can improve ourselves. I have considered that need to drink more water in a day haha. 

We are now going to go to the Sky Nursery (Which is just where they sell flowers and things) with our friends Maureen and Bob so wish me luck! They are plant geeks and I know nothing..

3rd picture is Julia! She is the sweetest 

Sister Stokes

The days are getting warmer! March 18, 2019

I am excited for the things that are happening this transfer! Sunday to wednesday we were with Sister Sturgell because her companion Sister Savoy finished her mission! But it was fun! We all drove up to Anacortes for a doctors appointment and it made me miss serving up North! It is so beautiful.

We tried to visit a Refferall we had recieved named Joseph. He requested a Bible so we were there to deliver! We knocked on his door and no one looked home, but right when we were about to leave, a car pulls up! Guess who?? It was the one and only Joe! This guy was so awesome, I mean super normal and could already see him being a member of the church haha. We asked him about his backround and he told us he had a lack of religion growing up, but has had a desire to look into it more and build a relationship with God. We invited him to church as well and after we left, he texted us later that day and said, "thank you for stopping by, I look forward to making a personal connection with the congregation." He is so sweet! 

Barbara was also able to come to church for the 1st time in months!! She is doing so much better and everyone was so happy to see her :)

We were able to have dinner with a sorta active family on Sunday and they have a daughter who is almost 10 and not baptized and we have been trying to start teaching her. The mom after we shared our message with them asked about us teaching their daughter so she can prepare for baptism so we are super excited about that! 

The Lord is working miracles as we keep working and looking for people to teach, I love the gospel and am so excited to keep on spreading the good news!

Love,

Sister Stokes

Shorline, Last Transfer

6 weeks???

We are coming into the final transfer of the WEM everyone! I still can't comprehend it, but time will tell I suppose. There is going to be a lot of change this upcoming transfer, many white washes, and in our zone all the elders will be on bikes except the Assistants and the ASL Elders. 

We have had a good week here in Shorline! We picked up such an awesome guy on Tuesday named Solo! His wife and her family are all members in our ward and they are all from Samoa. We have been trying to meet with him for a while now, and finally were able too! We invited him to be baptized our first lesson with him and he said he will pray about it. He already knows the gospel is true and has a testimony of Joseph Smith which it is so great! This family is so cute, The mom lives here and served a mission in Samoa and their dad served in California, but still lives in Samoa because they have a lot of land there he takes care of. He came a visited for a couple weeks because one of his daughter had twins and he came and blessed them both in church. He is a very faithful man. Some of the kids are not the most active and their youngest son Otto is 20 and wants to serve a mission, but has to work on a few things first. They are such an amazing family and so loving as all Samoans are haha, I pray that we can help them and help Solo understand the gospel and how it can bring his little family closer than ever!

We also were able to have a lesson with a referral we received named Ben! He is looking for truth and has heard a lot about the Church. He is very genuine and we are excited to teach him from here out!

We were able to pick up a former friend named Rabi, She is from Africa and is super sweet. She had the cutest kids! She is Muslim so we have to get permission to start teaching her, but we are super excited and hopeful it will work out.

Refresher on our recent convert Barbra!! As you may all know, Barbra's donated kidney was failing and it ended up having cancer as well. She was given 2-3 days to live while in the hospital. She was going through chemo treatments and they were not working at all. They decided to stop treatment after a week or so. Miraculously, Barbra's Kidney decided to start working again and the cancer was starting to shrink! It was the closest thing to a Resurrection, You wouldn't even believe how good she looks right now! She is back where she was living before, it's somewhere in between an assisted living and a hospital. But I've never seen her look so good, they removed more than 50 pounds of fluid that built up inside her body. She is a living miracle of what God can do as you submit your will to His and follow Him and His son. She wasn't expecting this outcome at all, and honestly she was wanting to pass on because of how much pain she has been in the past year, but the Lord has other plans in store for her.  I love her so much and am so grateful for her example to me.

Sister Walker and I gave talks in one of the wards on Sunday, probably the last talk i'll give on the mission (5 talks later) haha, it is always a good experience being able to talk to your ward. I feel like it helps the members know who we are more and that we are normal people which is good!

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

love,

Sister Stokes

Pictures!

probably last MLC for me! 

Last district council this transfer and sister Savoy dies!