Thanksgiving in Grand Junction!!

Well look at my beautiful family!!!! (In response to a photo of us taken on Thanksgiving.)

I'm glad you guys had a good Thanksgiving, even with all the crazy stuff that happened. I'm sorry to hear about Uncle Jimmy, but we know where he is and that he is okay. Tell Grandma Noakes I love her and give her a hug for me?? I was going to write her this week anyways, but now I definitely will. And I am very impressed that Donald came! Good for him and you guys!

Okay, so about my Thanksgiving and then my week. Thanksgiving was really good! Of course I missed you guys, but I still had a good time and wasn't really homesick. Although there were no sweet potatoes served, sooooo I'm still a little hurt about that one. But it's okay, I'll survive. Anyways, Thanksgiving was a no proselyting day, and it was weird to still be a missionary but to not be doing missionary things. In the morning us, the single's ward sisters, and the 1st ward sisters went to the institute and made hashbrowns and pancakes. Tasty stuff. Then we went over to a church building in the other stake where a lot of the missionaries were playing soccer. Unfortunately we had been dressed in church clothes (missionary habit), so we weren't really up for playing. But we did play some ultimate frisbee! Then, Sister Keihle and I went to our dinner. The couple is an older couple in the ward, but some of their kids and grandkids were there. One of their daughters who was there was even named Paula! We had a really good dinner and we also played Farkle. It was great! Later in the evening we went over to a member's house for pie. The Rasmussens are the greatest family! There's 5 boys but one is on his mission. Being with all of them was honestly kind of like being around the cousins, so I felt right at home. Then we had a sister meeting at the institute where we played games, and that was our Thanksgiving! It was fun, but like I said, weird to be a missionary but to have a whole day of not doing missionary work.

The rest of the week has been pretty good! Okay well we'll start with the bad news. Sister Keihle and I were supposed to have a baptism this Saturday, but it was contingent upon that investigator attending church yesterday. Guess who wasn't at church yesterday? Debbie :( but it's okay, it will all work out in the Lord's time and in His way. We are just trying to get in touch with her, because no one really has been able to. Prayers please! But good news about Debbie: she passed her baptismal interview! And President Murdock said she was one of the most prepared people he's interviewed! The credit totally can't go to us - it has to go to the Fruita sisters who taught her before she moved into our area. And, of course, Heavenly Father.

Okay on with more good news! Our investigator Joyce came to church yesterday and she loved it again! Sister Keihle and I basically barely talk to Joyce at church, and that's the way it should be. Joyce even set up her own member present lesson on Wednesday. SO AMAZING. We were also able to start teaching the 3 daughters of one of our other investigators, Tia. Tia already knows a TON about the structure of the church in terms of wards and stakes and all sorts of stuff about Relief Society, but she just doesn't know about the GOSPEL aspect of it. We're working on it. We also managed to find a new investigator yesterday, which is a miracle on Sundays. His name is Derek and we were sent to his house as a referral from our elders to try and see his wife/girlfriend/we don't know, Niki. Well, we talked to Derek outside yesterday and Sister Keihle decided to be bold about the Book of Mormon. This was a suggestion from Brittanie, a young woman in our ward who recently returned from her mission to London. After Sister Keihle brought it up, he said, "Well, if you have one, I'll read it." !!!! So we gave him one and he said we could come back next week! So awesome. So, as I said, this week was pretty great! I hope you all had a great one too. Love you!!!

Love, Sister Noakes

Sister "J"

Sister "C" and Sister Noakes

Yummy breakfast!!