Sister Kelsey Rook: Nebraska Omaha Mission

October 2, 2017

General Conference!!

Hey Fam!!

This week was a little crazy! I feel like a lot of things happened but at the same time I can't really remember what happened either so it was interesting. We weren't able to find any new investigators this week, and we weren't able to meet with Mariah. We had an appointment set up but she was not home and she has not been responding to our calls or texts, so we will be trying to get in contact with her this week. I also got super sick so that was no bueno, but I am much better now! There were some pretty great things that happened this week and there are always miracles! Here are a couple of them that were so awesome!

1. On Thursday, district meeting was incredible! We were able to set goals for the transfer and weekly goals that we want to make as a district. It was so motivating. We have some pretty good plans for this week and for the weeks to come that will help us to strengthen our members and to help them build their trust with us!

2. On Friday we had dinner with our investigator, Felicia. Missionaries met them about a year ago when Bishop Jackson invited Cliff, her husband, to come to church one Sunday. They both work on Offutt Air force base, and ever since then they haven't been coming to church. Missionaries since then have been trying to meet with them regularly but it hasn't worked out and so we were determined to figure out what was going on and to see what her expectations were of us and vice versa. We had planned to teach them the Restoration and set them both for a date. Cliff ended up not being there and we didn't feel right about teaching the Restoration. We ended up sharing Mosiah 18:8-10 with her and went over the doctrine of baptism. As we were talking about what baptism does for us she started tearing up and said that baptism had been on her mind for about a month now and she didn't know what she needed to do. She also expressed to us that Cliff had a dream about how he needed to come to know for himself if the Book of Mormon was true or not in order for him to be baptized. She said that those two experiences, Cliff's dream and us sharing that scripture, confirmed to her that she needed to be baptized! We tried setting her for a date but she said that she needed to talk to a certain individual at church before she wanted to set a baptismal date. She will be talking to him on Sunday! And hopefully in the next couple of days we will be able to set her and start preparing her even more! It is so incredible how God knows us so individually! I am always amazed by that simple truth.

3. General Conference was absolutely incredible! There were so many things that I needed to hear and I was just mind blown by each talk that was given- it was as if every single speaker was talking to me specifically. One quote that stuck out to me was... "Unless you are fully engaged in living the gospel with all your heart, might, mind and strength, you cannot generate enough spiritual light to cast out the darkness."- Ardern. This taught me that I need to be doing all I can to live the gospel to the fullest so I can have the light that I need to cast out the darkness. The darkness is going to come whether I like it or not but I can do certain things within my power so it doesn't affect me.

Well that is pretty much it for my week! I am so grateful to be here! Sister Hamner is doing wonderful! It is so awesome to see her change and grow! She is already more confident and willing to do anything that the Lord will ask her to do. I have learned so much from her and it hasn't even been a full 2 weeks yet! I am so excited to see what else I will learn and how we will both change! I hope you have the best week possible!! I love you so much!!

Love,

Sister Rook