12.25.16

Merry Christmas everyone! We've had a great day being together! And I've heard from several of you while we've been here. I only got to see two of "my boys" this time, but that's ok, with Christmas we wanted to spend time with family.


I got to see my friend Carie


Go to temple lights with my favorite people.. Ray, Keagan, Melissa, Chaz, and Hazel.


Hazel has grown so much in the past month since we saw her! She's starting to stand when you hold her fingers, almost crawl, and move everywhere!
She's so fun!


It snowed a ton today, so that was so fun and magical for Christmas Day!


We also went to go the see "The tree of Life" lights in Draper today.


Merry Christmas! And much love to you! I'm sure your visits with your family were wonderful!
Love ya!
Sister Shoop

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12.18.16

This week I had a little bit of a scary experience in having the possibilities of bad things that could of happened to me, but the tender mercies of the Lord pouring out to me so much, I had to sit for a while and contemplate what happened and say many prayers of gratitude.
This is what I posted on Facebook.

Sometimes when bad things happen we may not understand or be upset by what happens. Today I am feeling blessed and thankful!
Our back brakes went out on our black car.
Yesterday they were making a loud noise, but I had no idea what that noise was. I drove a friend up to Lakewood and nothing bad happened. (I believe a miracle! And we were being looked out for). Today Ray Shoop took it to go to work (another miracle, he usually takes the other car). And it started making really strange noises and all the lights came on! (Another miracle, it wasn't me, it would of really really freaked me out!). He was just a light away from Les Schwab. (Another miracle). They are fixing it right now. Another miracle (although this one is harder to swallow) is that we just paid off our Les Schwab card.. that's just life.. but glad we had a way to pay it and not miss out on some fun Christmas activities!
I had a friend once tell me how she felt about things happening and it has always stuck with me.. What if my brakes were going to brake down sooner.. ( on the freeway causing a huge accident) and Heavenly Father held them together for us until just the perfect moment when they could break down. After all, brakes do need fixed. I believe this. I believe that I was watched over. I believe in miracles and a loving Heavenly Father.

Another miracle I thought of that I wouldn't share on Facebook is one line of my patriarchal blessing says something like, you will be blessed as you drive on the highways. When I was sitting contemplating all the miracles of this incident and all the things that could of gone wrong, this phrase came clearly to my mind from my blessing.

I'm so glad school is out for a couple of weeks! We are looking forward to seeing our Denton family! Not looking forward to the driving.. but looking forward to being with our family!

Merry Christmas everyone!

At our ward Christmas party with the elders and Larry and his girlfriend Sue. They want to hear the lessons again for him. We're having them over after we get back from Utah!


My cute preschoolers Christmas prints for their parents.

Ray and Keagan were talking sports and looking at their phones for info. Hahahaha!

Love you all!
Sis Shoop
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12.11.16

Well the major news of this week was that it snowed!! Twice! Once, just a tiny little dusting and then Thursday afternoon-evening, it dumped! For our area, it was so much snow! It was beautiful! We got a little over 5 inches.


I always feel like a little girl when it snows! I don't like to go out and play in it.. but I get excited and love to watch it through the window. I was subbing at Aspire middle school when it started with only 20 minutes left in their day. I walked into the main building from a portable and looked out the window and it had just started. It took all I could to not squeal in a happy delight! It kept snowing until 1 or 2 am(my weather app said).
What was really nice was that we had a teacher professional day on Friday so there was already no school the next day!
I'm loving everything about this time of year. I love it when we turn our hearts more towards our Savior and think of things we can do for others.
One more week of school and then hopefully we can drive to Utah and see our Denton family. We feel blessed that we get to see them as much as we do! Hazel is going to be 8 months old this week. Crazy!!!
Her cute Christmas sweater!


Hahahaha, She's even cute when we can't get a smile out of her.

Love you all! You're in our prayers! And welcome to the mission field- mtc, Elder Beckdol!
Love
Sis Shoop
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12.4.16

Happy December and Happy Christmas season. I love most everything about this season including the lights and Santa Claus. I love family and friend gatherings. Mostly I love how there is more service and we think more of our Savior.
We had our annual family white elephant party last night. It was my turn to host. We had 29 people in my house. It was crowded, but fun. Thank goodness everyone behaved themselves. This is not always the case at these parties... It is my mom's side of the family - her siblings and my cousins. Unfortunately only her one sister (she is one of 4)comes now. But I guess it's all good. We miss the others.

Me, my mom and my siblings.

My youngest brother, Adam and his family.

Keagan and his cousins.

Saturday was a great day! We started off with the child of record stake baptisms. There were only two that got baptized. One was baptized by her bishop and the other was our recent convert family's child Owen - Yanni's nephew. The prayers, talks, and musical numbers were all done by the siblings of Owen. They were short and so sweet and tender. I love the simple and beautiful testimonies of these newer converts.
Then in the afternoon we went to Yanni's farewell open house. I think he is reporting Wednesday. He is going to the Ogden mission. He is going to be such a wonderful missionary!


It might snow this week! It keeps changing on the weather ap for tomorrow. Of course, Keagan is hoping for a late start. I'm subbing tomorrow. I'm not sure how that works with a late start..

This week it was one of our missionaries birthdays, but we didn't find out until 8:30 pm ish, so we ran to the dollar store and got him a balloon and candy. We have fun missionaries right now.


Have a great week!
Love you all lots!
Sis Shoop

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11.20.16

I can't believe I forgot to write last week.. oh well. I have a pretty good record! We had gone to my moms last week and I totally forgot. I usually write when the game is on, but it was too intense!
Last week I went to a funeral of a 85 year old lady from our stake. (Sis. Alexander) I really didn't know her, but I've seen her a lot over the years and said hi to her, but mostly I wanted to support her family whom I love. It was a beautiful service! One of the best I've been to. She was an elect lady and you could tell by the comments. The spirit was so strong and it really touched me. It was great to be reminded of the plan of salvation and families can be together forever!
Also last week, I finally got brave enough to cut my hair and donate it. That's why I originally grew my hair out, but then I kind of liked it..
I like it short and it's much easier to take care of, but my neck is cold! Ha!

I subbed as a recess duty this week and I was freezing. My friend Tammy Anderson and I at Lakes elementary school.


Our primary program was this week. It was wonderful as usual. The children bring such a sweet spirit! We also had a visiting general authority. Kind of strange. Nice, but I don't think I've ever seen one in our ward. He came with pres. Esquibel to teach the priesthood about the importance of home teaching.
So many weddings lately. Wonderful! Congratulations to Jared Oliphant and his sweet bride Julia! They were married in the Sacramento temple on Saturday. (I stole these from Facebook, please forgive me Oliphant!)


Next week .. my favorite! Overload of cute Hazel pics! They are coming for thanksgiving and will be here Tuesday morning!
Hazel is so funny! One of her favorite things is looking, talking to herself in the mirror. I screenshot these when we were FaceTime ing. (Is that a word?!, Les?)


Look at her cute little tooth!


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Love you all!
Sis Shoop

11.6.16

Hi! How was your week? My week was good and always better when I can see or talk to this little cutie. She loves her self. She just discovered herself in the mirror. So funny.. and cute!


I have a fun story that happened this week at my sub job.
This week I've been para subbing in the library at one of the local elementary schools. One of my jobs is to go in the lunch room and monitor for an hour.
I was walking by the 1st grade and there was a girl upset, arms crossed, scowl on her face, saying she was mad at someone and that "they" weren't her friend, but her enemy now. I stopped to listen to this conversation. The girl sitting across from her said, "you should give her some enemy
pie!" I quickly asked, oh, what is enemy pie?
She said something like this, it is where you get some really yummy pie and find your enemy and sit down and share it with them and then you become friends!
The girl immediately perked up and said, yah!
From the mouth of babes! I love this idea!️
I later found out this is a book that several of the teachers read to the kids.
It's a really cute story!
We got to visit my dad testerday. He's been having a hard time since my step mom passed away. It was good to visit with him and help him do some things. He is a stinker sometimes and especially when it comes to our church. He was saying he could come tomorrow (Sunday) and come take us out to lunch. I knew I had to say something to him, but was worried about how he would react. I told him, dad we don't go out to eat on Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised when he said, Oh! Ok! We'll go next Saturday, then. This was a big deal coming from my dad and such a relief!
We had the missionaries over for dinner tonight. It was so nice. It's been a few months since we've had them! I know! I think the longest we've gone in a long time!
I'm grateful for the Gospel and the scriptures. I know they are true.
Mathew Cheney came to visit us, too this past week from Alaska.

Love you all!
Sis Shoop
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10.30.16

What a great week! We got to enjoy Hazel and Melissa for a few days! I love our time with them. I know I'm biased.. but she is seriously so cute.. both of them!

We got to go to the Pumpkin Patch with them. Seriously, so much cuteness! Hazel gives us the best faces! It's so fun fun getting to know her cute little (big) personality as it emerges!

And she started sitting up for more than a few seconds when she was here. She was so proud of herself!

Her shirt says, I'm just soooo Fa- boo. Ulous. 

We also got to see my aunt and grandma and have a 5 generation pic. My aunt was so funny when I sent it to her, she said, thanks for the 4 generation picture, isn't the lady holding Hazel your sister? Haha, that's my aunt, my dad's sister. She stood in for my dad who couldn't make it. 

I was thinking today of "just" going to Lacey 6th ward for their primary program at 11 and skipping ours at 9. I'm so glad I went to ours! Leilani and Chad spoke. They're our recent converts of around 6 months. I love hearing concerts perspective and how much they love the gospel. They have a sweetness and innocence that sometimes we lack after a while. Chad talked about the scriptures and how he wants to be a "Sherlock Holmes" of the scriptures looking and finding what we need. I love it!

Leilani talked about sharing the gospel and how it takes so many different people to come into contact with to open converts minds to the Gospel. She related it to a chained heart and how every example unlocks a chain and we never know who or what we say will be the one to unlock the last chain to let the gospel in their hearts. 

And she said, it is like the song Amazing Grace. (My chains are gone, I've been set free)

We love hearing the Wa-tac missionaries sing that song!

If you can go to YouTube, here is someone's recording of our WaTac a year ago singing it. 

https://youtu.be/-1vfxCtpdEI

Have a great week. Love you all lots!

Sis. Shoop

10.23.16

I'm so happy. And tired.. but I think that is being an adult.. gosh darn it!
Melissa and Hazel arrived 9:30 Saturday morning in Portland! Oh my goodness! Hazel is so cute! And funny. She already has the cutest sassiest personality.. just like her parents!

Look at the looks she gives!


The shirt she wore here! And her tongue!


I got to go to 3 sacrament meetings today. Ours with Melissa and Hazel and 2 primary programs. So fun and great! In one of the wards there was a sister sitting by the pulpit with her back towards the audience helping kids with their parts. She was smiling at them, encouraging them, and a few she was holding their hands. A couple things here.. I think I could give a talk if I had that. And I feel like that is how it is with our Heavenly Father. He is constantly encouraging us. We just need to know where to look for him.
After church we had my family over. It was really nice!
And yesterday, it was sunny! It has been raining buckets lately. It was such a beautiful drive to Portland to pick them up.


Mt. Hood in Oregon.

Love you all lots!
Sis Shoop.
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