Sister Kelsey Rook: Nebraska Omaha Mission

August 8, 2016

Hello Everyone!!

Oh my goodness... This Week has honestly been incredible! There have been so many miracles within the past week that I don't even know where to begin! I guess I'll start with the Miller family. On Wednesday Sister Gershin and I wanted to do a small finding activity to prepare us for the big mission wide find that we had. We got to one of our appointments about 20 minutes early and set some goals that we wanted to achieve during that time. We ended up starting to talk to this girl who was riding her bike. Her name is Jayden and she is 12 years old and way prepared to hear the gospel!! We were able to teach the Restoration, set her for baptism (soft set), and set up a return appointment for Friday!! It was so great!! On Friday we went back and Megan (mom), Josh (dad), and Jayden were all prepared to hear the Restoration! It was so powerful!! We were able to give them all a Book of Mormon, commit them to read and pray, and set all of them for baptism-soft set again. It was so cool during the lesson because Josh was confused about having to be baptized again, so we were able to clarify that you need to be baptized with the proper authority, and he goes, "That makes so much sense now!" And we were also able to clarify that baptism is by immersion, and Josh says, "That is the way I've always thought it should be done!" The Miller Family is sooo prepared and I am way more than excited for them!! Oh! I almost forgot they are preparing to be married so that they can be baptized in the catholic church... but now they just have to pray and know for themselves which church has the Priesthood Authority!! So we might be able to be a part of a marriage-baptism!! So exciting!!

Alrighty, now onto Jessica and Olivia! We found Jessica and Olivia as we were walking out of our apartment one day and we asked if we could help her carry groceries inside. She said no but said we could open the door for her instead. We started talking about who we were and what our purpose was, and she turns to her daughter Olivia and says, "We love talking about Jesus!" we were able to set up a return appointment with her!! On Saturday we were able to meet with her and it was incredible! We were able to teach her the Restoration and set her for baptism on August 27!!! We felt prompted to talk about the Atonement and afterwards she just said that she loved that so much, and she loved how it wasn't just focused on Christ's Crucifixion. She wasn't able to make it to church on Sunday... but we were able to see her later that night, she said she wanted to come so bad but so many things got in the way- then she reminded us of our next appointment! It was so great! I am way excited for her as well!!

Lastly, with the mission-wide finding activity! President Gardner wanted to have this huge finding activity with all the missionaries. We couldn't have plans between 6-9pm on Thursday, he wanted us to all be outside talking to as many people as we could. The mission set some goals. We have 90 companionships, and he wanted all of us to to set 1 person for baptism, give away 2 Book of Mormons, and teach the Restoration 3 times, if everyone did that then we would have 100 baptism sets, 200 BOM's given away and will have taught the Restoration 300 times!!! It was so miraculous! As a mission we were able to set 109 people for baptism, place 281 copies of the BOM, and teach the Restoration 308 times!! Right at 6pm it started raining SOOOO hard! We were drenched within the first 20 minutes! Sister Gershin and I were walking so fast from house to house- it was so much fun! No one was letting us in... because we were soaked and no one was listening to us at all... Then we tried one more house before moving to our next area! As soon as we started to teach the Restoration the rain stopped!! We were able to teach it to a guy named Griffy- we were able to set him for baptism and give him a Book of Mormon! It was so cool! We have a return appointment with him, he was so prepared!! It was great!! We are pretty sure we will have to pass him to YSA sisters so that is kind of sad but super exciting!!

We have honestly been working sooo hard! There is just so much work to be done! Every night I am exhausted and so ready for bed- but that is how it should be! The miracles that we have seen in this area definitely make up for the tiredness I have felt! Well I think that's pretty much it! I love you all so much!! I will talk to you next week! Bye!!

Love,

Sister Rook :D