#ilovemissionlife

Hello!!

How are you all doing? my week was great!

but really though. this week was great.  We started off the week with exchanges!!! which was amazing.  I stayed in the area. with my comp sister story. and the sister training leader sister knight. WHAT. yeah. you read that right. i was incharge of a spanish area for a day. i was TERRIFIED. seriously, i dont think ive ever been so scared in my whole life.  but... it was amazing. i made it! i found out that i actually know a lot more than i though.  so yeah. it was amazing.  it was kind of sad, because all of our lessons fell through. but... we did a loooot of contacting! something that is a struggle in the mission for almost everyone is talking to everyone. because we are supposed to do it... but its hard. but this day. i talked to EVERYONE.  it was amazign! i dont know what happened, but all of the sudden all of my fear was GONE. it was seriously the most amazing thing ever.  I was so happy.  i learned so much on exchanges.  mostly my potential.  and then... it was cool because the next day we had interviews with president. and i had no problems so it was a quick happy interview.  but something that he said that caught me off guard was "well yeah sister stokes, i mean, you are ready to be senior companion.  it could happen at any time now."  WHAT. this is only my 3rd transfer in the mission field!!! so yeah. that freaked me out a little. but we will see what happens.

Another thing i wanted to mention about this week.  We started this new program called just serve.  which, basically, we now have a key indicator of service hours. and we are to try and get 10 a week. so to help accomplish that, we started serving at kindred care! its a rehab center, and i loooove it.  oh my. these people are so sweet! we really just go and visit all the women.  and we just walk into their room and talk to them and sing to them.  it makes me soooo happy.  there is one named salvation.  shes from the phillipines. and i love her so much.  she tells us we sound like angels. and theres also doris, she is hillarious.  yeah. all these people are just amazing.  i love kindred care.  old people are the cutest.(:

Also, miracles are always happening here.... one we had yesterday was that... WE SET A BAPTISM DATE WITH THE GARCIAS!!!! just the mom and the daughter, but still. the dad will come one day.  we did it in a different way though. we challenged them to just try, try living the gospel for 3 weeks. and we said that at the end of the 3 weeks, if they feel like this is the life for them, they will get baptized.  and well they agreed, and then hermana garcia told us that she feels ready. that she wants to get baptized because she knows these things are true and she knows that this is the path for her.  but she told us that she wont get baptized until her daughter brenda does. and brenda is the hard one. shes the reason they dont come to church.. and so we now decided to go through her. so we are hoping she really does try and live the gospel for 3 weeks, and that she will get the answer that yes, this is the path for her. its just hard because shes a stubborn 13 year old girl. she wont come to church because she doesnt want to leave the house.. and stuff like that. shes reallly stubborn. so please, pray that her heart will soften.  and i know that if these two make it, the dad will come with time.  (: 

Also, I just wanted to talk about something i studied this week. for one of our less actives, dagoberto, we were studying about the temple. because he wants to prepare to recieve his endowments! anyway. i was studying ordinances and covenents.  its amazing.  if you read in true to the faith, both those topics, its amazing how important those things are.  Then go read Moroni 10:33.  It talks about God's covenant with us.. that actually, when heavenly father sacrificed his son for us.. he was making a covenant with us.  isnt that amazing?  He was willing to let his son be crucified for US.  for our remission of sins.  Thats how much he loves us.  if you ask me... i think its pretty amazing.  and compared to what He did, we really got nothin.  We just need to follow him.  And in my opinion.. it is totally worth it.  Oh man, how would it not be?  Heavenly Father has made these amazing covenants with us... why wouldn't we follow in his path to show him our love in return?  man.  I wish I had more time to explain more. but I challenge you all to go study these.  Also read DyC 82:10; 97:8; 98:13-15.  Those scriptures are amazing.  I also challenge you all to make and keep covenants with out heavenly father.  Because it is worth it.  He has an amazing plan for us, and we need to show him that we love him.

Thank you all for reading, i hope you have an amazing week!! 

Hermana Stokes

pictures.. just me and my comps having fun.  and mom, in one of the pictures you can see our apartment! you wanted to know what it looks like. well thats basically it. hahah and a kitchen and bathroom and study room.