Sarah's Mission Adventures!: baptism

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooo everyone!

So this week has been crazy and OF COURSE I forgot my journal so I'll really have to try and remember everything that happened. Hahaha.

Last Tuesday we had zone conference with 4 other zones! We had Elder David S. Baxter of the first quorum of the Seventy come! He's from Scotland so I obviously enjoyed myself. Hahaha. And it was wonderfully spiritual and I learned a ton! But the accent made it that much better. Plus, I got to see a bunch of my missionary friends! It was a lot of fun. Then on Wednesday we did some service for Mesa County Food Distribution, and we taught a newish investigator, Katrina, who is friends with the mom of the two children who got baptized this weekend.

Anyways, the most exciting part of Wednesday was this: Sister Masima and I had to go to the library because she had online training to do. As we're leaving, a lady in our ward stops us and asks if we would like to be interviewed for the article she's writing on younger missionaries. Of course we say yes and we also got the singles ward sisters and our elders in on it. So we all got interviewed Wednesday night and the article was in this Sunday's paper! I'm sending home a copy for you to look at and read and all that good stuff. On Thursday, we went on exchanges with the sister training leaders again. I went over to 9th ward with Sister Jones and it was a ton of fun! 9th ward covers Clifton and Palisade and it was SO WEIRD to not be in my area. Sister Masima and Hermana Bennett found 4 new investigators that day and Sister Masima and I have found 2 others this week as well. On Friday we taught one of those new investigators and got photographed for the paper. I also got a blessing from Brother Becker (ward mission leader) that day. Sister Jones told me I HAD to get one, as well as talk to him about if we have a ward mission plan and some other stuff. I love that blessing and I cried and it was great. I just love the Beckers SO MUCH. Anyways, this Sunday was this ward's primary program and it was definitely the cutest thing I have ever seen. Oh, and let's not forgot. This Saturday we had TWO BAPTISMS! Yay! Conner and McKayla got baptized and the baptismal service was so good. McKayla was crying before her baptism but afterwards she was really happy. HOORAY!

Sisters Noakes and Masima with Conner

Baptism kids Conner and McKayla with mom, grandpa, and uncle

I love you lots! This week was pretty wonderful and the work is getting better here. Now let's all pray that I don't go anywhere!

Sister Noakes

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/a-higher-mdash-and-increasingly-younger-mdash-call

Front page of GJ Sentinel, texted to Mom by Sister Larson

So we took these pictures last Monday at FHE at Melanie's. Across the back is me, Hermana White, Sister Masima, Hermana Gailey and Melanie. Across the front is Elder Jacobson, Sondra (with Oreo, the puppy), Hermana Arcia (who taught Sondra), Sister Caisey (her current companion, from Bermuda!), and Elder Austin.

Aren't the elders just little punks? Dumb Elders and their faces. Hahaha.

Book Cliffs (Mom note: There really are formations CALLED Book Cliffs! Just thought it was a street name ... heh.) and Mount Garfield, from when Sister Noakes was on exchanges.

Book Cliffs outside Grand Junction

Mount Garfield

And Mom got a text from Sister Larson with this picture.

Hello my familia! So let's see what happened this week... The “B” kids are getting baptized! Conner and Mckayla passed their baptismal interviews and they're getting baptized this Saturday! Hooray! Things are moving right along with them and I'm looking forward to it. We also started teaching the B’s neighbor, Katrina! She's been friends with Sister B for a while and when Sister B started coming back to church she invited her friend along. She's pretty interested and hopefully things will work out great for her too! We also were supposed to meet with this potential investigator, Penelope, this week, but when we showed up for our appointment she had left a note on her door asking us to come back later. She texted us and told us 630, but when we showed up, there was no answer :( we were walking away when her husband came out and apologized and was like "You have to understand how hard I work and that I don't want company right now and blah blah blah" and I REALLY didn't like the way he was talking. He seemed very controlling and that makes me grumpy. Hahaha. Why do we keep finding willing women with controlling husbands? (remember "We're Catholic, LEAVE!" guy? Yeah. Anyways.) But they said we could come back another time so we definitely will.

On Friday we had the ward social! it was pretty fun. GJ 1st ward has a chili cook-off every year at their fall social, and Brother Wynne wins every year... this year was no different. I don't know if I ate his chili or not though, they were all anonymously labeled. Someone made some delicious clam chowder though, and I liked that! It was a ton of fun to see the ward all dressed up, especially the little kids. We got to say hi to a lot of the ward in one place and meet a couple of new people. It was fun and a nice "break". They also do the traditional costume parade and our dear elders naturally pranced across the stage. They're such children but I think it's great. I don't call them "eldren" for nothing (a combination of elders and children... we came up with this in the MTC. Hahaha.). On Saturday we helped with the ward service project, which was yard work for 6 homes for people in hospice who can't take care of their lawns themselves. Not a lot of people showed up because a soon-to-be-missionary in the ward was going to the temple for the first time and there were quite a few people who went to that instead. So we split up into small groups we thought would be sufficient... NOPE! Myself, Sister Masima, and Sister Green and her daughter were NOT enough people to tackle the lawn that we had been assigned to. It worked out okay though, we called in for help and got the job done.

On Sunday, Brother Becker gave us a surprise... about 20 minutes before sacrament meeting started, he asked Sister Masima and I to teach gospel principles! We don't even own the manuals! So we rushed to the library and spent sacrament meeting studying and whispering plans to each other. Hahaha. Good thing the lesson was on missionary work! It went pretty well, I think!

And now for the funnest part of our week.. on Sunday night, Brother Gylling called us. He's a ward missionary and we're always pestering him to let us serve him. Well, last Monday he brought down a bull elk on the mesa. His wife told us they'd need help cutting it up and grinding hamburger meat out of it. Well, Brother Gylling called to tell us he was cutting up the elk! Sister Masima helped him skin it (she's hunted pig and skinned it before, back in Samoa, so she knew what she was doing and I didn't really want to participate in that aspect hahaha). I was mostly just moving meat from the table to the cooler when Brother Gylling had me come over and cut some myself! So I've helped cut up elk steaks and yes, there's a picture.

So that was our week! Things are hopefully going to keep picking up as we meet with more members and they get the message more and more that they NEED to help us!

I love you guys!!! :)

Love, Sister Noakes

First is myself and Sister Keller and her daughter at the ward social. Sister Keller comes and does service with us and she LOVES us sisters. She invited us over to her house for Halloween and I'm a little nervous about what's in store for us. Hahaha.