Week #3-Issaquah

Family... Are you kidding me!? No emails from you!? What the heck!!! It's fine. I'm just being forgotten about already....

 

This week was alright. I'm having a really hard time. I'm so homesick it's hard to go out and do somedays. Sister Monks and I are both sick now so that hasn't helped at all. I still have a terrible cough and it just will not go away. She is super congested and has some sort of head cold so we are basically just sharing our germs back and forth. Neither of us can sleep at night so the lack of sleep isn't really helping either.

 

The work isn't really going anywhere right now. We don't have any investigators and we knock doors basically all day. People in Issaquah aren't super friendly or receptive to the message so we get a lot of doors shut in our faces. It's pretty discouraging. We try and see a lot of the less-actives and part member families to help reactivate them so that's where we do most of our work. We do have this one lady, her name is Jami. She was baptized when she was 19 but got offended by someone in the church and hasn't gone back since. She is older now and has kids who aren't members. She loves us and has us over all the time. Mostly it was just social visits for my companion and her last companion but now we're really trying to get her to go back to church and to teach her kids. We are reading Our Search For Happiness with her and she really likes it. By the way, if you haven't read that book, read it! It's awesome. It explains our church so simply and logically. It just makes so much sense so I really love that book.

We met another lady named Peggy. She has member friends and I think was taught a little once before but we're going back this week to hopefully teach her the Restoration so we'll see how that goes.

 

Last night we had our first dinner appointment. We eat with members on Sundays and Mondays. We visit with a lot of members and share spiritual thoughts because no one else will let us in haha. We ate with the Frasers and they served their missions together. He was her Zone Leader and they were married like 2 weeks after they got home. It's a really funny but cool story.

 

Also, yesterday there was a Mission Leadership Broadcast from the Marriott Center at BYU and the quorom of the 12 was there, including the prophet! It was a big deal apparently. They had all the missionaries attend because they were going to make some big announcement. They told us that missionaries in the mornings during study time are now allowed to use the Internet. We can use Facebook and mormon.org and a few other websites and things to help us progress with the work and teach people. Pretty cool.

 

So, I don't have a ton to say this week... Just that it was hard. And I miss you all so much and truthfully I just want to be home. I hate saying that because I don't want to be a quitter but honestly this is the hardest thing I have ever done. It's pretty discouraging here and 18 months is a really really long time ha. Well, I love you guys a lot and hope to hear from you soon! It's pretty quiet over on this end. Talk to you next week!

 

Love, Sister Brian

 

P.s. If you are sending a package, you could throw my ipod in there if you wanted. We can only listen to hymns but any variation of them. So if someone wants to get me a bunch of hymns to put on there that would be awesome. And maybe even some dinky little speakers. Just an idea! Another thing, I want pictures!! Everyone here asks what our families look like and want to see pictures but I don't have any. Sister Monks has a little picture book thing with tons of pictures of her family so if you want to put something together like that I would love it.

 

P.P.S. Dad, I've talked to a lot of people about what you do and everyone here just loves your movies. One of the ladies in our stake was inactive for a while but said those movies got her through her hard times. She said she would watch them over and over and that's what got her going back to church. So that was a cool story!

NOTE: IN CASE YOU THINK WE ARE BAD PARENTS, WE DID WRITE HER BUT I SENT IT TO THE WRONG EMAIL ADDRESS. LUCKILY KURT WAS ABLE TO COMMUNICATE BACK AND FORTH THROUGH EMAIL THAT SAME DAY. POOR GIRL!!