Eugene Oregon: Sister Cook

What a week!! On Saturday we did a zone-wide 12 to 9 so we all got together as a zone and took one hour in each area and just knocked doors for the whole day. We switched up companions and had dinner together but we just tried to find the elect all day. We were able to find so many cool people!! As a whole zone, in all the areas we were able to find 72 new people to teach. Our goal was 70 so we basically knocked it out of the park. We ran into this cool guy named Raam in the 2nd ward’s area who we were basically able to teach all of the lessons to but he had to go wash his dogs so he couldn’t hear the last one but we set up a solid return appointment so that he can have all the knowledge before we get him wet 😉 We also got to tract in Ashland which is basically like the prettiest area I’ve ever seen. Even though it’s only 20 ish minutes away from Medford its just that much closer to the mountains and the everything is way more green, I’ll attach some pictures for your enjoyment. 

After the zone 12-9 we all met up at the church in Ashland and just watching all these missionaries roll in and congratulate each other made me just realize how there’s absolutely no place I’d rather be and absolutely no work I’d rather be doing than working where I am right now. I love this life! 

At church yesterday all the talks were about meekness one of my favorite thoughts that was brought up was that being meek doesn’t mean being a doormat for everyone else. Rather, meekness means being willing to acknowledge the accomplishments of those around you and genuinely want them to do their best while not losing your own value. It’s a fine line but with God nothing is impossible. 

We also got a ward mission leader yesterday!! We had our first correlation and things are looking bright for the Medford 6th ward! I’m so excited to see the changes that this new leadership will bring! 

This week I’ve really been reminded of the importance of the Book of Mormon we have had the opportunity to share this book with many people this week and the power that is within this book is unmatched!

We have this adorable couple that is just the sweetest, this Sunday we came over to talk and they had made us homemade cookie dough ice cream it was literally the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted! And we were able to teach them about the Plan of Salvation so it was kind of a win-win.

I love you all! If you are looking for something good to read this week look up the BYU devotional The Power of Not Knowing by Liz Wiseman literally so good!

Knowledge does not necessarily mean power. Or at least good power 

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/liz-wiseman/the-power-of-not-knowing/

Love you all 

-Sister Kara Cook 

Beautiful Ashland
12-9 with Sister Sykes, Sister Newton, Sister Owen
Zone conference with all the sisters
Sister Bunker! (One of my STLs from 2 transfers ago)
I honestly don’t remember why we took that picture 
One of the cool people we tracted into on Saturday gave us La Croix

This was a pretty dang good week. We found some pretty cool people and had a lot of really good lessons!

For district council this week we went and buried our weapons of war. It felt a little scandalous because we had to walk to the 1st ward elder’s apartment because that was where the hole was and we were just walking down the street carrying these mini knives… thankfully no one called the cops on us.

We tracted into a member this week and they invited us in for a minute and showed us their super tiny dog. Sister Johnson just perks up and goes “Is that a puppet?” Totally innocent and we all just looked at her and then she goes, “wait I meant puppy”. In case you were wondering in Oregon instead of having dogs for pets, people just have puppets :).

We tracted into a lot of cool people, there was this one guy who opened the door and I noticed he was wearing a national guard shirt so I asked him about it. Come to find out he’s actually a recruiter for the national guard… and he’s really good at his job. 45 minutes later and I’m ready to sign the papers. 

Sister Newton was trying to be funny this week and she told me that there is a different definition for goat than greatest of all time. But all she could come up with was “gabbers of all time” so next time someone is talking a lot maybe consider them goated.

Lots of love from Medford!!!

-Sister Cook

Zone breakfast for lunch
Burying our weapons of war
Lunch with the sisters Pear farm service

Happy 4th of July!

On the 4th of July we partied hard all day (aka worked our butts off) and I was asleep before the fireworks even went off, overall it was a super successful day!! 

On Saturday we said a prayer before we went tracting and contacting and usually when we pray we pray for a specific number of new investigators to find but this time I prayed that we would be able to leave a Book of Mormon with someone. We tracted for a while, ran into a couple of cool people who are going to let us go back but it wasn’t until after a few contacts that we decided to stop by a member that we’d never met before. She came out to talk with us and she had recently just been married and moved to a new house and she had literally been sitting on her couch thinking about religion when we knocked on her door. We talked for a good long while and she asked for a Book of Mormon because she couldn’t find hers. When I said that prayer at the beginning of tracting I definitely didn’t think we were going to leave a Book of Mormon with a member but it kind of shows how God always answers your prayers but often not in the way you think he would or expect he would. 

This week, my baby and I were training and we were practicing the Plan of Salvation and finding scriptures to go along with the lesson. I was looking for a scripture about the post-mortal life and I found this gem in Job 19:26. I told my comp that if she used that in her next role play with the sister training leaders I would buy her lunch every Friday for the rest of the transfer. Look it up.

We have this one investigator who every time we go over has a question for us to take back and ask the members of our ward before reporting back to him. His question for this week was “what do you think of when you think of God?” This has been an interesting topic to study this week and it’s really been on my mind as we’ve been talking with investigators and members alike. The prophet Joseph Smith said that “it is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God.”  Feel free to shoot me an email with some thoughts or record yourself talking about it, or just think and ponder about it and share some of your thoughts with family or friends this week. 

I learned a new word this week: cock a hoop.  It means “full of high spirited delight”. In addition to thinking about God this week, I challenge you to use cock a hoop in a conversation, maybe a conversation about God 🤷🏼‍♀️

Love you all! 

-Sister Cook

Sorry mom I forgot to tell you I need glasses now. 
4th of July parade hopping
How much wood would a missionary chop if a missionary could chop wood?
Driving range with the zone
An aesthetic picture of Sister Cook brushing her teeth.

We have just been so crazy jam-packed and working our tailbones off I just feel like I’m perpetually tired but not in a bad way. On Saturday, we were at an older nonmember couple’s home visiting with them while we waited for the 8th ward sisters to pick us up.  We had walked a really good portion of that day, so we were exhausted and at this point it was maybe 9 or 9:15. When we got into the car they started asking about one of the people we are teaching named Phyllis and they were asking when her birthday was and we couldn’t remember but we thought it was in February. Finally after trying to wade through a bogged mind to recollect the exact date I frustratingly said, ” I can’t remember! We’ll just have to ask her, our next lesson is only in February!” The sisters kind of looked at me and then we all burst out laughing. Sometimes I feel like we’re all booked out until February. Don’t worry though, our next lesson is actually next week. I’ll have you know I slept very well last night.

This week we decided to tract this apartment complex in our area and the first hour we were knocking doors, literally everyone who answered the door was made a new investigator, we got 6 solid return appointments and we were on top of the world. It was literally such a blessing, amazing miracles! 

Transfer calls are this week which is wack because it feels like this transfer just started and now it’s coming to a close! Keep in touch!

A verse that has kind of stuck out to me this week is Hebrews 12:1 “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” I love the idea of putting everything down, laying down all our sins and weaknesses so that we can run faster with nothing holding us back. Run like the wind this week! 🌫🏃‍♀️

       Love you all!

       -Sister Cook

A good reminder
I have the best STLs
Bridesmaid photoshoot 💁🏼‍♀️

This week has literally been amazing! We have had so many teaching appointments and return appointments that we’ve just been swamped. But in a good way.

Plus we went on exchanges which is always fun!

Lots of pictures !

On Friday night during exchanges we literally knocked on three doors and on the third one we ran into this lady who talked our ears off for a straight hour and a half. She was so funny, and she invited us to come back the next night and play her piano so we came back with our  companions and we sang her “How Great Thou Art” and it was so cool! The spirit was so strong and just wow! 

The ward that we are in right now is so fantastic, we were trying to find a place to go last night for a zone fireside because we wanted to roast s’mores but we didn’t have anyone with a firepit. Within an hour of sending out desperate pleas for help we had at least four families respond that they were more than happy to have us over! The fireside was a success and the s’mores were delicious so overall it was a fantastic night!

I promise one of these weeks I’ll actually put effort into my weekly 🙂

Love you all!!

-Sister Cook

Our zone
Beautiful Oregon
Phyllis ❤
Exchanges
Caroline- one of the other Sister’s investigators
Louise
Zone fireside pt 1 Zone fireside pt 2

Kara didn’t want to write an email on June 10. Here are pictures from the week.

Hey hey hey

What a week!

So yesterday, we were out contacting and it was super blazing hot but that’s besides the point. We were knocking on this door and watching a spider crawl up the handle, admiring its almost stop-motion picturesque movement. Unfortunately whomever we were trying to contact wasn’t home so we got back in the car (that we were so grateful to have because it was so blazing hot) but as we were driving away, I felt something on my elbow. Thinking it was just a stray hair that had fallen off my head I absentmindedly reached across to brush it off. To my horror I felt a large, furry something crawling up my elbow, I basically shrieked and flipped out, pulling over to the side of the road and jumping out of the car. After our hearts had stopped racing and we had gained the proper confidence to get back in the car Sister Johnson goes, “wow, that’s the best parking job you’ve done all day”. If that doesn’t just sum up how the Lord watches out for his missionaries in everything I don’t know what does.

Besides furry spider things we’ve actually had a pretty good week! We had stake conference this week and Elder Lawrence E Corbridge came to speak to us because we got a new stake presidency. It was really amazing!! So remember how Matthew Richardson gave like my absolute favorite BYU devotional of all times well Lawrence Corbridge gave like a very very close second favorite BYU devotional of all times. It’s called Stand Forever and it was given in January if this year. Go read it!!!

Anywho love you all!

-Sister Cook

We found a double rainbow! But I think you can only see a single one in the pic

Sister Newton and I got matching sweatshirts

Cold stone with the sisters Tracting in the mountains 💯💯

What a week. 

It’s been good just really crazy.

Being up in Cresswell was really fun. It’s crazy how God is always using you as a missionary, we were just walking to try to contact someone in area book and we walked past a house with a car parked outside with a Hawaii license plate and Sister Fenton and I just looked at each other and we were like “let’s knock it”. It ended up being this super sweet young mom who we talked with for a good long while and shared with her about the gospel and she was really interested. It’s just crazy how God is always looking for ways to further his work and it’s our job to recognize that. 

I finally met my trainee!! Her name is sister Johnson, she’s from Alaska! God is the best trainer there ever was, so as long as I don’t let Sister Cook get in the way, it’s hard to go wrong. Right? I was reading in Alma this past week particularly with Alma and Amulek and verse 18 in chapter 15 stuck with especially strong this week, its after all their preaching and lots of conversions and persecutions and it says “Alma having seen all these things therefore he took Amulek… and took him to his own house…and strengthened him unto the Lord”. Even after all his hard work and successful hard work, Amulek had to be trained by his senior companion Alma there was still more for him to learn and grow in. I think if I could have any goal for Sister Johnson for this transfer it would be to strengthen her unto the Lord and teach her how to work hard and recognize the miracles that then come. 

 Love you all!!        

-Sister Cook

This week has been literally so good! 

Literally such a good week! 

We had Zone Conference on Tuesday literally straight fire 🔥 Elder Stephen Bangerter of the 70 came to speak to us. It. Was. Amazing. W.O.W.! I literally do not think I have never felt so inspired in my life. One of the things that really stuck out to me from the conference was that the spirit testifies of truth. Any truth that you speak, the spirit will testify. Even when you just announce that you are a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the spirit testifies of truth. Literally so cool! 

Another cool story, we went on exchanges on Friday/Saturday with our STLs in Eagle Point. As we were going out tracting, Sister Hepler felt like we should go tract another street than what we had planned. As we were getting out of the car I checked my bag to see what kind of supplies I had and realized that I had two Word of Wisdom pamphlets, joking I turned to Sister Hepler and said, “we’re going to leave a word of wisdom pamphlet with someone on the doorstep tonight”. I’ll have you know I have never in my life left a Word of Wisdom pamphlet on a doorstep. But we laughed about it and promptly forgot, until we knocked on a door and I kid you not, the very first person to open the door in that night of tracting started talking about one thing she loves about our religion is how we don’t drink alcohol or smoke or drink coffee. And Sister Hepler and I just looked at each other and I left my very first Word of Wisdom pamphlet on the doorstep. W.O.W.

Lots of pictures for this week. You’re welcome

Love you all!!

-Sister Cook

1. Crater lake pictures
2.exchanges
3. Sister Clark and I showed up wearing the same dress one day
4. Zone conferences