Email 89: Elder Falabella + Phyllis + The Brinkmanns

Received on November 24, 2014

Hey everyone! Happy Thanksgiving this week. I am grateful for you all :) for reals. I just love this time of year here in Washington. I forget it is November/December sometimes because is feels like a rainy April day in Idaho haha. But the spirit of thanksgiving is here, shouldn't it be always?, and people are more open to our testimonies of Christ! We had a wonderful week!

Elder Falabella from the 70 came to our stake conference in Federal Way this weekend! He is a pretty neat man. He talks so simply and calmly but with great power at the same time. We had a wonderful conference and we were blessed. Big news! They announced a Spanish Branch this weekend and it will be organized in January! The ward boundaries in the stake will get reorganized as well. I remember in February as a zone leader here when we really started pushing for that! That means I will see a new spanish branch created in bothe years of my mission that I got to be involved with. Super sweet!

So, pretty sweet experience this week. We had service planned on Friday from 12-3, but it started raining, so it got cancelled. We still felt like we needed to do service so we went to a less-active ladies house and did a little job that we knew she needed done. We were still staring at 2.5 unplanned hours. I got a sure feeling that if we prayed and acted we would be led to places where I service was needed. So we did just that! I said a prayer and then decided to follow every thought I had where to turn. About 6 turns and a couple miles later, we found ourselves on a dead end street. As we were turning around I noticed a long driveway that led back to a house and saw a person in a yellow rainsuit back there picking up some branches. " There is no way I thought" haha. But there was! We walked back there and it was an older lady, Phyllis, that was trying to pick up a huge yard of branches. She was very grateful we were able to help here for an hour! So cool. It doesn't stop there! We still had another hour so we did the same thing, just drove and followed our thoughts. After a few turns, I had the thought "go to the Brinkmanns." So we go there, and of course, their next-door neighbors are working on a project outside in the rain. We go and ask if we can help for an hour and they gratefully accepted. And then we got to go back Saturday morning and help them finish! Pretty sweet eh? God is real!

Bro Barner and Taylor are both still solid! I love them. Taylor will be getting baptized this saturday! :) Keep them in your prayers!

We had a sweet lesson with new investigator named Nina (nine-uh-) last night in the Allens home. Sunday Morning we were praying and trying to make plans to reach some specific goals when the thought just came to me. "Go and ask Nina to come to the lesson at the Allens tonight" so we did. And she accepted, and came, and loved it! She is excited to continue to meet with us and find out that these things are true for herself! Pray for her!

Lots of wonderful things happening here, too many to write about! Thank you for all of your prayers and support! I sure love you! Have a great Thanksgiving!

Elder Cook

Slim Moments:
- "Thats not a mom, thats a lady." Ya, you had to be there... Really funny though.