Letter to Home - December 14, 2009

This week has been great! We witnessed miracles! The first one was that a lady in the ward named Irene Morris (we call eachother "Darlin' ") got baptized yestersday! She was an excommunicted member, that found her way back into the fold. She is the nicest/funniest/older lady ever! She has been living in the ward boundaries for about 5 years, (all alone) and nobody even knew about her, until about 4 months ago. She was going on a month long vacation to see her family back east, and needed someone to watch her dog. She couldn't find anyone, so her son (the one she was going to visit) suggested that she call the local Bishop, to see if a ward member would be willing to watch a Shitzu for a month. So Sis. Garrison got the phone call, and then sent an email out to the ward. Sis. Hernandez got the email, and volunteered to watch her dog. After Irene got back from her trip, she thanked Sis. Hernandez, and asked if there was anything that she could do for her. Sis Hernandez said "Yup, you can come to church with me!" And that is how it all began. We have been going out to her house on ward splits, and reading the scriptures with her. She was welcomed into the ward with loving arms, and fit right into the ward family. She has truly repented, and last night was a miracle as she was re-baptized! (she calls it being "double dipped!") I had the privilege of speaking at her baptism, and it was a great experience!

We also went to a part member families house this week, to teach Toms wife. Tom is a less active member and his wife is not. We talked with Tom for a while, but Terry, his wife, was in bed already. We went into the kitchen, and started talking with his daughters boyfriend (who usually is very rude to us when Tom isn't home). We started talking about Jesus, and he always thought that Mormons weren't Christian. We pretty much taught him the first lesson, and at the end he said, "wow, I didn't even know that story. Are you going to let me read the Book of Mormon?" We were like oh yea! So we left him with our testimonies, and with a copy of the Book of Mormon, and gave him the commitment to read and pray. We went over to Tom's house to teach his wife, but the Lord had other plans for us, and we ended up teaching the boyfriend (his name is Jason) that usually yells at us! It was great.

Well, I got the 12 days of Christmas package, and we LOVE it! I love the 1st gift, we really needed some Christmas music!

This transfer is already my favorite transfer! I love training! Elder Malani is a rock star. He is training me more than I'm training him, but for the first time in my mission, I feel like my companion is my really good friend. I've loved all my companions, but Elder Malani is just awesome!

I love you all so much! I want you to know that I am being very well taken care of! I almost feel like I'm home for Christmas, because I've been in this ward for so long! That's probably not a good thing, but the members here love me, and they are like family.

Oh, to answer your question, our ward is a lot bigger than our home ward! We cover pieces of 5 different cities! There are a ton of people to teach!

I love you all! Merry Christmas!

-Elder Cook