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! 

Love when the weatherman in wrong

It has been a week! This is the first time being able to come to the Library in 4 weeks due to snow and then Washington's Birthday haha. So it is nice being able to type on a keyboard! People were saying it was supposed to show today, but they were so wrong! There's not a cloud in sight!

Things have been going good here in Shorline. I feel like every week is pretty busy and there is always an exchange with other sisters and many leadership phone calls, but it is good! We had lots of amazing lessons this week with friends and returning members and have a lot set up for this coming week! We really have been doing a lot of work with returning members, it definitely is very important, there are a lot of part member families we are trying to start working with as well.

We were able to go through our area book and under former friends we found a guy named Moses and the reason they dropped him back in the summer of 2017 was because his family was going on vacation to California for a month or so! So glad we were able to go in and find him again! He is so awesome, it was around 7:30 and it was pretty dark in this neighborhood, but as i was walking up the steps to the house, Sister Walker behind me goes "Hello!" and I was so confused because I didn't see anyone. But It was Moses! He just got back from his friends house haha. We started talking with him and found out he is from West Africa and just moved here 2 years ago! He said he liked what the missionaries prior to us taught him and would like to keep learning. He said he used to go to the Catholic church with his family, but has stopped going to church all together.  He said he wants to start going again so that is good news! He is a senior in high school so luckily we don't have to pass him off to YSA just yet haha.

We are still trying to find more people to teach as always, but I love being able to see the Lords hand guiding us, there are always moments in the day you just know that impression wasn't you and something amazing comes from acting on it. There are so many opportunities to do good out there, we just have to be willing to look outside our little selves and not be afraid to reach out. Love you all and hope you have a great week!

love,

Sister Stokes