Temple Tuesday! January 15, 2019

I am so grateful for Today! I had the opportunity to go to the Temple with my favorite Rusians! It was a process to get here, but we made it! For a couple weeks we have had this plan to go together, but last second President asked if we could change it to the 22nd so sister Parfenova could come as well since she is Russian, so I started trying to figure out how I could go the 22nd, but it just was not working out. There are no other days to exchange with sisters because 4 of them went to the temple today too and yeagerday and today were the only available opening where we could move exchanges! So it's already 7 PM Sunday night and we need to know if were exchanging, but president wasn't getting back to us, so we just had to make plans, so all in all, it worked out and sister Parfenova is going to go with sisters up in Bellingham on the 22nd. All I can say is I LOVE THE TEMPLE!! This was probably one of my most powerful experiences there. Mostly Every seat in the room was filled! There were 3 rows of sisters who had to sit on the Brothers side because there were way too many of us hahah. What a great problem to have! Such a blessing to go to the temple. 

Barbra had her baptism on Wednesday and it was such a special day for her. I am so grateful to know her and to have had the opportunity to teach her as well. 

Getting everything prepared in such a short time was very crazy, but the Lord provided a way! Even with trying to find someone who could help change Barbra in and out of her baptism clothes, we asked a sister who has experience in nursing homes and she didn't even hesitate to say yes, we couldn't believe it because when she got there she told us she lives an hour and a half away and drove just to do this for someone she didnt even know and then had to drive right back to go to work! She was an angel sent from heaven, we don't know what we would have done without her honesty. 

Barbra had her biopsy on Thursday to see what the problem has been with her kidney and she got terrible news about what they had found out on Friday. Barbras kidney is not only failing, but she has cancer... we are devastated about the news, but Barbra has so much faith and knows everything is part of the Lord's plan. She has made me a stronger person and I truly am blessed to know her. She wasn't able to make it to church this Sunday because her nurse wouldn't let her, so the brethren ar going to go over tomorrow to give her the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

We had our car fast plus apartment fast this week and it went 100 times better than my last one! It's when we don't use our car and leave the apartment at 10 and don't come back until 9.  We picked a great day to do it because it wasn't rainy! We had member rides to all our lessons which was a blessing! But we saw lots of miracles and met some amazing people! 

We had Zone confrence the next day and we had interviews and district council all in one! It was very different, I asked president how he liked doing it this way and he said, "this will probably be the 1st and last time we do it like this" hahah. It was a good zone confrence though! We learned about budgeting and how to cook! We are blessed with an extra 40 dollars in our fund for food now since we don't have member dinners Haha, so we learned the ways of crockpotting and even got a recipe book. Sister Price and I also had ro instruct of Safeguards for using technology and it went fairly well! I realized I only have 2 more zone confrence and it made me so sad! Where has the time gone??

You wouldn't even believe the weather up here in the Pacific North West! Blue skies and in the 50's. It has been a blessing! 

Our friend Chee is preparing for baptism this upcoming Saturday! We are so excited for her, the Hmong elders are going to translate for her interview and hopefully there will be someone able to come translate at the baptism on Saturday! 

We were able to put our friend Yasmin on date for March 2nd, she has gone through so much in her life, she was in an orphanage up until she was 17 then moved to America but things didnt work out with those who tried to Adopt her. But even with all of these trials in her life, she has never turned away from God, she has always trusted in Him and His plan for her. This Sunday was our fast and testimony meeting and she asked if she was aloud to go up and bare her testimony. She really wanted to and asked if I would go with her. I of course went with her and after she bore hers, I was able to. It was such a powerful testimony meeting. Because we have less time, I feel like everyone was trying to get up there it was great! One after the other! 

I love you all, I hope you have an amazing week filled with miracles! 

Love,

Sister Stokes