2.08.15

Hello to some of my favorite people!

One of my favorite talks is by Elder Bednar, “Tender Mercies” I remember when I first heard it and how it just touched me. I have always had a strong testimony of Heavenly Father’s love for me and others. Sometimes I am amazed at the little things that he takes interest in and really cares about. I had one of those “little” moments this week. I was trying to figure out a simple art project for my preschool class on the three pigs. I knew what I wanted to do, make 3 houses with one of straw, one sticks, and one brick to go with the story. I was looking all around my house for a simple square and triangle so I didn’t have too much to cut out. I came across my sticky notes and thought, oh those are the perfect size, I will use that as my pattern and cut them out. Well, then I had the thought, why don’t you just use the sticky note as the square shape and then you don’t have to cut anything out. Pretty simple, yes. But then I immediately knew that although it was very simple, it was not my thought, it was a tender mercy given to me. As simple as it was, it helped me save a lot of time and I knew that my Heavenly Father loved me and cared about me – even through my simple tasks. (Imagine how much he cares about the bigger things!) I put a picture of my art project...

Oh, Poor Melissa! She gets sick so easily! If there is anything to get, she will get it and it will be worse! This week she called me and was complaining about back problems and was in a lot of pain. The next day she had a temp of 103 and went to the dr. She got lots of different blood tests done and found out that she had an urinary track infection that got worse and turned into a kidney infection. The dr said it is fairly common in females. So she was waiting for her test results to come in and was in so much pain that she had to go to the ER Sat. night. They gave her an iv and morphine. Now she is on 3 different antibodies.

It has been really hard with her being so far away on both of us. I want to be there to help her and she wants the help! But we have been blessed with lots of people helping her out. The picture of her in the hoody is with Sherri Kay Miller. That family used to live in PA and she was the YW president when Bro. Shoop was in YM. (She must have been a young yw president...) They live near Provo now. She came over and brought Melissa dinner.

The 2 other pictures of Melissa are pretty self explanatory. In the hospital, getting her drugs and iv.

The other picture.. only in WA?! Keagan and I were driving and saw them holding the sign, “Legal Marijuana” +21  OH MY GOODNESS! We were laughing so hard and he got a picture for me!

We had a baptism this week in our ward. I don’t know much of the story except it was a young married couple that had just moved to our area. She was an inactive member. Her husband, Corey got baptized this Wed. It was nice. There was a lot of ward support there and his wife, Dallas gave the talk on baptism! Corey actually got up and bore his testimony today.

ok, a fun and little crazy story of me...  My baptism anniversary is Valentine’s Day. I was baptized when I was 10 years old. When I turned 8, we lived in Alaska. We lived on a tiny little island near Ketchikan – Metlakatla. We were in a tiny little branch. I think the most people we had was 20 or so people, 3 or 4 families. Since my bday is in January, they wouldn’t let me get baptized in the ocean, it was too cold. We moved back to WA when I was 9, but by then I was too scared of the water to get baptized. (I still have a little bit of water phobia). I do have some fond memories of having missionaries over all the time, they were trying to help me to decide to get baptized... The rule was (I’m not sure if it was my mom’s rule or the Church rule) that after you were 10 you couldn’t take the sacrament. My mom made a huge deal out of this and really tried to persuade me to get baptized. We went to every single baptism there was..

This weekend is still very clear in my mind.. that Friday I threw up on the bus (GROSS!) and it snowed that weekend. We went to a baptism that Saturday. I was not scheduled to get baptized. Some how my mom convinced me to get baptized. (I really wanted to, but was scared of being dunked). They had to totally clear out the room and it was only the 2 witnesses, my mom and 2 younger siblings in the room. Since I wasn’t prepared.. I had to use paper towels to dry off. But I got it done!   My little ward in Rochester WA was so happy for me, I remember I had 3 cakes to celebrate! I should look up on my baptism certificate and try to find the missionary who baptized me! I would love to hear their version! And a picture of me – my school picture when I was close to that age. Haha

Love you all!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sis. Shoop