Good Morning Beautiful Mother! :) There's not a huge change in my emailing time. The zone tries to do it all at the same time because we do it at Sister Deuel and I's stake building for the summer.
My area's been awesome so far! Both Sister Deuel and I are fairly new (she's more familiar with how things work here than I am). I'm really confused about directions like I am in every new area. But we have a new investigator we're teaching tonight!! He might actually live in Ammon however, and it's bad for us to teach him out of his area because he won't know anyone in his ward first. We've also been teaching a lot of recent converts and less active members (there's A LOT here). Sister Deuel is fun! :)
The eclipse will occur August 20th!!! They are anticipating so many people to be in little tiny Rexburg. It will be very interesting to say the least... Hopefully someone will have a special camera so they can video tape it for everyone else. I might need food/snack stuff for that weekend because the stores will be super busy. As weird as this sounds, I don't know my address yet. Do you know the mission office address?
Sister Houston and I are excited for the Tuscon Temple! We wish we could be there! :( But missions are fun too. :)
There was someone in my last area who used the mormon mom planner, and she loved it!! Do you remember me mentioning "C"? Her husband passed away last December, and she had to get used to a new life basically. The planner helped her from what I heard from her. :)
Have a great week!
~Sister Brinkerhoff
Sister Deuel and I BEFORE we were companions:
Last day in Henry's Fork:
August 15th:
Hi Mom!
I hope you are doing well! I'll tell you now that next Tuesday will also be our preparation day that week because of the eclipse.
The special conference I was talking about last time was really good! We heard from Elder Snow and Elder Taylor of the Seventy, along with their wives. We also listened to talks given by some of the missionaries in our area. They gave good talks about talking with everyone and not beating ourselves up.
I've had a good week,but I've been pretty tired. My first areas were both kind of slow, and now all of a sudden we get bombarded with so many texts and people trying to tell us stuff all at once. Our phone was erupting with texts while we were at conference, and people always try to get a hold of us when we are in the middle of a lesson. It's kind of frustrating, but it's not too bad at the same time. I like to be busy, but it's difficult when people want to get a hold of us for so many different things at once. It probably won't be too bad once I get used to serving in town. I'm starting to learn my way better, and we've had so many awesome spiritual experiences in teaching with Sister Deuel. I felt prompted to share a scripture I never thought of sharing before because I thought it would be too bold, but at the beginning of my mission I thought EVERYTHING was too bold. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I wasn't proud to proclaim the gospel, but I've always had this fear that I would say something wrong. I've learned to just follow the spirit in what to share with others. I hope I don't sound pessimistic, I've just had to deal with so many crazy scenarios on my mission and I've made lots of mistakes, but I just want to give everything my all for the next four months. On a good note, the investigator Sister Chandler and I taught is going to be baptized this Saturday! We're excited because Sister Chandler and I will be able to come AND she will go to the temple the same day to be sealed to her family!!!!!!! 
The people we've been teaching are great too! There's a sweet sister whose been through a lot, and she wants to have the lessons re-taught to her. From what I know, she's been in a couple of very abusive relationships and learned about the church while she was staying with her parents. She was baptized, but 4 years later (now) she has a lot of questions and concerns. We love her and hope to teach her how she can find answers. I think she just really feels unloved because of her past, so we'll emphasize on how much her Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love her. We're also going to teach our investigator today on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we're going to extend a baptismal invitation to him (a date I mean). We'll see how it goes. He and his girlfriend are really nice. He has soooo many questions and really wants to be committed if he finds out that the gospel is true.
ha ha I got interrupted from finishing my email because Sister Chandler just snuck up on me!!! 
Yay she's back! :)
Tell everyone I said good luck with school or work or whatever y'all are doing right now!! 
I love you!!
~Sister Brinkerhoff
August 22nd:
Hi Mom!
So I'm going to say right now...this week was the absolute weirdest week of my mission!! I don't know where to begin...
Sister Chandler came back to Idaho. She's living with her siblings in Ammon until she goes to school in September. Sister Settle sent me a letter before she left for home on the 17th. :'( She let me know that an investigator we were working with in Ucon before we got whitewashed was baptized! We had invited him to be baptized, and the Elders later told her about the baptism. Sister Cottrell came up to Rexburg for a baptism, and I asked her if Sister Settle was ok before she left for home. She said that Sister Settle was feeling sick prior to leaving. I hope she's alright.
Continuing on with my crazy week, "A's" baptism finally happened last Saturday!!!!!! 
She sat with me and Sister Chandler before she was baptized by her Dad. He started tearing up as he was saying the prayer. I wish I had the pictures with me, but somebody else took them. She was also confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost the same day. Normally that's not permitted until Sunday in sacrament meeting, but they got permission to do so because they went to the temple later on. Sister Chandler and I got to watch "A" be sealed to her parents!! :) That was such a spiritual experience!
I was so happy to be there! And I basically spent half a day with my former companion. It's weird to think that we were companions four months ago!!
Well, you know the other weird news...ECLIPSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was a little annoying when members would walk by and say things like, "I'm already a member!" or "My wife already does all that" but that's ok. It was worth it for the people that had meaningful conversations with us. We haven't been to the store yet because this is our p-day, so I hope there's things there still. I'm not too worried though because the crowds were not nearly as bad as the predictions were. We heard that the traffic in Idaho Falls got really bad when everyone tried to leave at the same time. 
But now things are back to normal. Kind of. I'm still struggling with the phone. There are days I wish I could toss it in the garbage can. It's just that everyone tries to get a hold of us in a hurry when we can't or don't know how to respond.
I hope you and Nathan both had wonderful birthdays! I also hope that Sarah, Grandma, Megan and anyone else with an August birthday have fun! How is mission preparation going for Megan?
I think I'm doing alright. I wasn't as sad when Sister Chandler left because I knew I was going to see her again when she came here for school. I have no idea when I'll ever see Sister Settle again or Sister Deuel when she goes home, so I've been a little down about that. Luckily I have their contact info ha ha! And Sister Deuel is really good at helping me be happy and laugh.
I hope your week will be wonderful!! And I'm glad y'all got to see some of the eclipse!! I love you a lot!!
~Sister Brinkerhoff
My camera isn't the best, but oh my goodness the eclipse was so cool!!!!!!!! I hope the video works! Everyone there was going crazy! :)
August 28th:
Good Morning Mom! Thanks for sharing photos of Nathan and Sarah's birthdays! I'm so glad they finally got to go camping! :) I laughed so hard at the second picture of Sarah. It's good to know she hasn't changed TOO much! Why didn't she want to blow out candles? No big deal, just curious.
I think everything was ok after the eclipse as far as I know ha ha! Everyone tried to evacuate as soon as the eclipse was over, probably to get away from the Mormons ha ha. It seems like every time something weird happens to the moon in Flagstaff everyone goes beserk!
I'm feeling some pressure to start applying for school, but I don't even know where to start!! I at least know that my first priority when I go home is to get a job again and learn how to drive. I have absolutely no idea where school is going to fit in, but I will trust in the Lord. It's all kind of frustrating to think about, but my focus is still on my mission. I'm just trying not to compare myself to others about it. I'm starting to recognize jealousy that I feel sometimes for others, and I'm trying to stop. I guess to explain, nobody in particular is pressuring me to apply for school. The mission president hasn't mentioned anything about it to me unless I ask him about it. I do have a different path, which is what I think is scaring me. I felt like a loner in the YSA ward back home because I couldn't connect with them. All they had were struggles about school or boyfriends or who knows what. I'm just worried that I'm going to be right back in that same situation.
Wow, so for the moment I'm the only Missionary on the board? Weird! All the church buildings here have walls covered with missionary plaques! :) Typical for Idaho I guess! But it's so amazing what happens here. Most returned missionaries going to school here look at us in astonishment because they think there's no work here, but there's been so many wonderful events here that they don't even recognize.
I hope you have a great week! I'm so happy that you got to see an old friend! I hope I can do things like that one day :).
I love you!
~Sister Brinkerhoff
No comments:
Post a Comment