Weekly Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

I forgot to mention the transfer we had last week. Our district really got changed. The sisters who were serving the Young Single Adults both left the district. One went home and the other went to her original mission in Jamaica. So we received two new sisters to cover that area.  One of them, Sister Hubbard, is from Aberdeen. For those of you not part of our immediate family, Aberdeen is a little farming town in southeast Idaho.  The Cooper family lived there for a few years back in the 1950s. It's also close to Rockland where Mom lived for several years. Sister Hubbard's family has been there about seven years. It's a small world. We also got two new sisters to take over an area where the elders had been working. We now have six sisters and four elders, not counting us. Of the ten missionaries serving from our district, eight are from Utah, one from Idaho and one from Arizona. Utah just keeps pumping them out.

We didn't have FHE this week. Bro. Flanagan was in a lot of pain Sunday evening and Monday.  HIs wife said his whole body was in excruciating pain.  Kim asked if we could come over and give him a blessing. I called Bro. Galloway to join me and we gave him a priesthood blessing.  He was completely out of it; the next day he didn't even know that we had been there.  He was up and helping Kim in the garden.  I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to exercise the priesthood while on our mission.

We cooked up sloppy joe's for the Young Single Adults on Tuesday. We had those with some potato chips and melon and everybody was happy.  We also had a yummy dessert.  We made a Blueberry Delight for FHE on Monday, but when FHE was cancelled, we decided to take that to the Institute.  We are going to make that dessert again for FHE this tomorrow.

We had another Temple Prep class on Wednesday.  Alex and Brenda were both there again this week.  The lesson was mostly about the Temple Recommend questions and the importance of living the commandments so we can be worthy to enter the Holy Temple.  They are both really excited to go to the temple. Wednesday night we went with the Zimmermans, the Flannagans and Debbie Piper to a restaurant called Aces Run.  It's one of the nicer eateries in town. They have a pasta bar on Wednesdays that is so good.  You go up to the cooks and tell them what kind of pasta you want and what sauce, veggies, meat  and seasonings you want.  They cook it right there in front of you. You can go back for seconds if you want but we were both really full after the first helping. The Zimmermans paid for all of us; they are so generous.

Thursday morning was or normal day at the hospital. The first Thursday evening of each month is the branch activity night.  We have a couple from the branch that are Dutch oven cooks and they came and showed the only young woman to come how to make monkey bread.  They had one oven already done so we could have treats right away, and then had KIrsten and the sister missionaries make another oven full. It was really good and Kirsten looked like she enjoying it even though she was the only one there under 20 years old.

Friday was our District Council meeting in Morgantown. It was good to get to know the new missionaries a little better and we enjoyed some good training. It's nice that they try to include the old folks.  We left from Morgantown and drove to Parkersburg, WV to help Bro. Fuhriman and Sister Hart with some training for the seminary teachers in this area on Saturday.  We didn't actually do any of the training but helped set up and and keep the treat bowls filled, picked up lunch and cleaned up.  We sat in on the training and even though we won't be teaching seminary any time soon (never) it was really good information on teaching the doctrine of the Church using the Holy Ghost. We got back home, it's about a 3-hour drive, at about 6:30 and we were tired.

I (Dad) taught Sunday School today so we much of our down time preparing the lesson.  We had a good turn out of visitors today, we probably had around fifty people at church.  We will have a pretty good turnout of visitors until Labor Day and then our attendance takes a dive.

Mom's scripture today is the 9th Article of Faith.  It says, "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God."  She likes this because we are a church built upon revelation, both from the Prophets and Apostles and personal revelation to guide us through life.  

That's it for this time. We love you and pray for you daily.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Grandma and Grandad

Jamee and Kerry

Sister and Bro. Cooper 

1. Pasta menu