10.7.18

• What a week! Before I get into that.. I could write a whole email on General Conference! Wasn’t it amazing! And two hour church! What?!
  

  
  

  I love President Nelson! I deleted my Facebook and Instagram app for the next days off my phone. I started  my personal reading of The Book of Mormon. 

  
  

  Monday night President Esquibel came over and set Keagan apart. It was a beautiful blessing and we were all teary eyed. We had Makayla’s Family and my mom and Thom come over and my Aunt Ellen was here, too. (More on her later). 

  
  

  One of the hardest parts was to see Makayla and Keagan give their last hug. We sure love her and her family! She has been a good example and good friend to him. 

  

  
  

  Tuesday morning we took Elder Shoop out to breakfast. It was a quiet meal. I was trying to hold it together. As we got closer and closer to the airport, it got harder and harder. My heart physically hurt. But at the same time I was (am) so proud of him and the person he is! That bittersweet word again!

  

  
  

  At SeaTac airport, up above.

  
  

  Saying goodbye was hard! 

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  We watched him walk in line until we couldn’t see him anymore. 

  

  
  

  His plane left at 1:00 and went to Salt Lake where Melissa and Hazel picked him up. He had a good evening with them and even got to watch and listen to some thunder and lightning! 

  
  

  The next morning Melissa took him to go visit our good friend Jennie Klumker and out to lunch at his favorite spot. 

  
  

  She took lots of pictures for us and sent him off! 

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  What a good big sis Melissa is!

  
  

  

  
  

  https://youtu.be/E77o4yIuWbA

  I made a video of him entering the mtc. I love Melissa’s voice in the background. 

  
  

  I gathered myself together after he was “gone” and went out to do some shopping that I needed to get done. I pulled into the parking lot and checked my phone before I went in.. there was a short email from him already. More tears.. had to gather myself together again. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  His good friend Landon Oliver is in the MTC right now, going to the Philippines. They’ve know each other since Landon was born! So, Friday morning I was reading Landon’s email before I went to work( thank goodness!) and Elder Oliver says...

  
  

  
  

  Wednesday is easily one of my favorite days of the week, it is the day I get to torment newbies. As they walk through the doors, my whole district will usually try to hide spoons in there stuff or shirts, or yell at them in Tagalog. All a lot of fun.  But as we were heading to go do studies I got a prompting to get my camera, so we did and we waled over to our room and just as we were leaving I ran almost literally into Elder Shoop, who is on the second floor of our building. It was great.

  
  

  But I didn’t get the picture until that afternoon. (Luckily after work.. haha)

  
  

  

  
  

  So, how cool is that! Our first picture of him with his name badge on is with one of his best friends! What a tender mercy!

  
  

  Well, the other big thing at our house is that we have two roommates. My Aunt Ellen moved in with us in the downstairs bedroom and Kenzie Redding moved in with us into Keagan’s room!

  My Aunt Ellen is my dad’s younger sister and she lived in southern Oregon. She wants to be closer to my dad especially since his health has declined. And her son lives in Seattle, so she asked if she could live with us for a few months while she finds a job and gets her own place or gets a place with my dad. So, far it has been great. She’s very pleasant! And she’s cooked us dinner a couple of times! I may never want her to move out!

  
  

  Kenz is basically in the same situation. She just graduated from beauty school and needs to save a little and get her feet on the ground. 

  
  

  So, last week was a little crazy with them moving in and Keagan leaving, but we’ve really enjoyed their company and I think it will be good. 

  
  

  Elder Shoop’s email is keagan.shoop@myldsmail.net if you want to email him. Next week I’ll try to remember his physical address. 

  
  

  Love everyone!

  Sis Shoop

  And I love this picture!

  

  
  

  
  

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10.5.18 bonus

My first picture of Elder Shoop as a missionary with his name tag on! 

Landon Oliver is in the mtc right now going to the Philippines. Here is a paragraph from his email yesterday. 

Wednesday is easily one of my favorite days of the week, it is the day I get to torment newbies. As they walk through the doors, my whole district will usually try to hide spoons in there stuff or shirts, or yell at them in Tagalog. All a lot of fun.  But as we were heading to go do studies I got a prompting to get my camera, so we did and we waled over to our room and just as we were leaving I ran almost literally into Elder Shoop, who is on the second floor of our building. It was great. 

How awesome is that! ❤️

Tender mercy for sure! Tears of joy!

Love you guys!

Donna

10.1.18

A little late. We were enjoying life to much to write earlier. 

We had an awesome weekend! We took off to Long Beach Washington on Thursday afternoon. We got there just after the sun set. It was still beautiful! We had a 2 bedroom condo about a block from the beach, but it was up on hill and overlooked the ocean. We had an awesome deck view. I sat there a lot enjoying the tranquility- sound and smell of the beach! We were also lucky enough to have beautiful weather the majority of the time we were there! It was in the high 70s and sunny! Sometimes you don’t even get that in the summer!

 Friday morning we headed over to Long Beach, the cute little beach town and had so much fun! It was almost magical and had so much fun enjoying our time with Keagan. 
He loves the arcade, we spent a couple hours in there. It was pretty fun! We went into all the cute little shops, had ice cream, played mini golf, and Ray and Keagan went on the go carts. 

We went onto the beach a few times, but it was hot (we’re wimps) and we had forgot our chairs. We went back to the condo for a short nap and woke up to fog! We couldn’t see the beach anymore!

We had a great time! I can’t wait to go back! 
On the way back, we stopped and saw my dad and Keagan said goodbye. 

Yesterday we had an open house for him. It was so nice to have so many people come over and support us. I have too many pictures to post. The nicest surprise was seeing Greta Harris (Lapossa) come. We had no idea she was coming. She lives up in Mulkiteo now (at least 2 hours north). She was Keagan’s primary teacher for a couple of years and they were super close. That was really sweet. 
Beth and Merrill George came from Portland and Logan Woodbury came from Bremerton. And of course, our bonus son- Adam Cichoski came over from Moses Lake. It was great to have a lot of youth there and people we love from the ward. 

I haven’t cried as much as I thought I would. I’m happy that he is worthy and willing to go. I will for sure miss him! Mostly I’m sad about the end of an era at the Shoop family. Our youngest child to leave the house. 

Tonight, I’m sure will be a different story. He gets set apart at 8 pm. Tomorrow we take him up to the airport and it leaves at 1. Melissa will pick him up and take him to the mtc Wednesday where he reports at 1. Pretty exciting! 

Many more emotions to come next week! And I’m so happy General conference is next week! What a great time for all of us to hear our Savior’s voice through his prophets!
Love you all, 
Sister Shoop



Sent from my iPhone

9.23.18

It’s been a good week. I feel like I’m finally getting into a routine.. mostly. The boy I work with- A, was gone a day this week and we just started going to groups during the day, so we’re almost on a routine. A is fun to be around so I’m pretty grateful to get to hang out with him. He needs a one on one because of medical problems. He has a g-tube that I need to go take him to the nurses office twice a day for his feeding. It takes about 15-20 mins each time. So, unfortunately he’s missing out on class time any time that happens. His family speaks Spanish and sometimes he doesn’t quite understand English. He couldn’t understand a phrase that a book said- green lit.  He was thinking it was lit, like legit- the slang for cool. Not lit up as in a light. Hahaha

I got 75 lbs of apples and made and canned applesauce yesterday. I think we counted 39 quarts. I have an attachment for my kitchen aid, so it makes it a lot easier, but it’s still a lot of work! I just cut the apples in 4s and boil them and put it in the attachment and push it through with a spoon thing and one side comes out the applesauce and the other the seeds and peels. And then I add just a little sugar. Yum!

Today was super emotional. But that’s how I am, too. First we went to Macey Adams homecoming talk. She did a great job. The youth speakers were great, too. It’s been fun hearing so many peoples thoughts on the prophet coming. I love how everyone hears something different. The Holy Ghost is amazing!

One youth talked about how President Nelson said, I plead with you to read it (The Book of Mormon) every day,

you will be immunized against the evils of the day and be drawn closer to the Lord.”

This was one of my favorite quotes. The youth speaker told about his sister how she had to go get some shots- some immunizations- and afterwards the nurse gave her a pink bandage, she was wearing it around so proudly and showing it off, he compared the pink bandage to The Book of Mormon, we should be proudly showing off the Book of Mormon, too. 

The next youth told of how everyone was talking about praying and having a question in mind to have answered, she said she kind of thought about it, but not too much. When she got there she realized she didn’t really pray about anything, and felt a little bad. She was listening intently though and felt the spirit and heard President Nelson say, the Lord likes effort! And that she was going to get to work and put more effort into it. 

Macey did a great job, too and talked about how the ball is in our court. Heavenly Father and our Savior are always there for us, we need to reach out to them. 

Elder Gessel of the area authority seventy was there, too. He only had a couple minutes, but talked about all the requests people had to meet with President Nelson and how badly he felt that he didn’t have time to do so. He said that he only met with one family that their story was near and dear to his heart. President Nelson’s daughter (I hope I get most of these facts straight..) had five daughters when she had cancer and passed away. The family he met with had 6 childeren, the Mom just had her 6th baby and had brain cancer and wasn’t expected to live much longer. President Nelson felt a special kinship with that family. 

We found out that Melissa and Hazel might not be able to come this week. I totally understand why and I’m not going to get into The why’s, but needless to say I was sad about us not all being together before Keagan leaves. I think too that I had been holding it in all week and it all came tumbling out at the end of Oly 1st ward. The spirit was strong, too, so that helped..

Luckily I had a couple hours until our ward started to get myself together and get my eyes less puffy!

Our opening song made me a little weepy, but for a different reason. “Where can I turn for Peace”. It is one of my favorite songs. And I felt a tender mercy that my Heavenly Father is aware of me and loves me. 

I don’t think I even cried during Keagan’s talk! He kept looking at me and I knew I had to sit there and smile! It’s when Bishop got up and ended the meeting saying how he’s known Keagan his whole life and how well he would do that I was just a little misty eyed again. And Keagan did a great job on his talk. He talked about the attributes of Christ from Preach my gospel. Gah I love that kid!!

We felt so loved by all our family and friends there and I know many more were there in spirit! Thanks for all your love and support. 

Keagan leaves next week, Tuesday October 2. He’s being set apart Monday evening. Wish me luck this week!

We are going to the beach Thursday and Friday night. I’m really looking forward to it. 

Love you all!

Sis Shoop
Sent from my iPhone

9.16.18 President Nelson

My experience with seeing the Prophet, President Nelson.

A few weeks ago we had ward council and were encouraged to get people excited about seeing the Prophet and learning about him and praying to have an experience that he would answer while he was there.

I taught the Young women about prophets and shared some fun stories with them about previous modern day prophets.  I love the stories of our prophets when they are boys and younger with some of the fun things that they do. One of my favorite stories is of George Albert Smith. He was quite a character! He chased the neighbor girl, Lucy and once tied her to a tree with her braids.  He must of redeemed himself, because later she married him. Another time he went to General Conference with his kids to the tabernacle and there weren’t any seats left. It was a Saturday, so he took his kids to the fair that he had been wanting to go to. When he got home, there was a crowd of people in his front yard congratulating his wife. He couldn’t figure it out and asked what all the commotion was about… He had just been called as an apostle and wasn’t there! Haha!

I tried to find fun stories about all of our prophets and then gave them a challenge to learn more about President Nelson and go to this devotional with a question in mind and be praying about it.

There was emails sent out saying that there was several different construction projects going on this weekend and to prepare and go early. We decided that we wanted to go extra early and ride the ferry with my mom and Thom.

Riding the ferry is one of my most favorite things to do. We go to Bremerton and ride over to Seattle. It drops you off right next to Pike’s Place Market. You miss a lot of traffic. I love almost everything about the ferry ride. I love sitting on the big bench seats and looking out over the water. I love going out on the deck and feeling the breeze and the fresh air.  I love it even when it is cold and/or stormy. To me, it is very relaxing and peaceful. I have great childhood memories of being on the ferry and going to my grandma’s house. I thought, what a better way to start our day?! As you can tell, it was very windy. I didn’t go out to far for fear of my dress blowing.. Yikes!

We got in line a little before 2, the doors opened up at 4, and the devotional started at 6. It was fun to wait in line and people watch. We had a really good spot in line and we saw lots of families come in. They were all so excited and happy to see the Prophet. It was was really fun to see.

We ended up going through a different entrance because my mom was in the wheelchair. It was pretty exciting to go through the VIP entrance. There is a huge mural of all the great Mariner players. (I recorded it for Melissa).

We had great seats! section 127, row 18. We were sitting behind home plate, President Nelson spoke from where 2nd base would be. We've never sat that close before, I'm sure they would be expensive tickets!

We love going to Mariner’s games and have been a few times to Safeco field. It was amazing sitting there and watching Mormon messages on the jumbotron and peoples pictures of themselves at the field. #followtheprophet  There was such a peaceful feeling there. It was wonderful!

President Nelson kind of snuck in, all of the sudden people were standing and pointing that he was there. What a wonderful feeling to stand for our prophet, his wife, and Elder Eyring. (I recently finished listening to his biography and have even more love for him!)  

We heard some great messages and felt the love of our leaders and prophets. President Nelson’s wife told of how she knows he is a prophet. She shared that she had an experience that taught her that he is the prophet and it happened twice to her, but was too sacred to share. She also told us how he often times will be sleeping and get up and write several things down in his notebook. She said there are times also where she feels prompted to leave the room so he can be alone to receive inspiration. She jokingly said, my ancestors are probably in on it, too because when I leave, I go to my family history room and do their work.

One of the best parts was when he left and we all got up and stood to sing, We thank thee O God for a prophet. I couldn’t even get most of the words out because of the tears, it was beautiful and I knew and know that he is a Prophet of God.

There is so much more that I want to write, but I need to get to bed.

I will say that it was an amazing day and everything about it was wonderful! The ferry ride, waiting in line, seeing all the people, waiting and watching mormon messages, and of course seeing our dear prophet. He has a wonderful personality, too!

Have a good week!

Love you all!

Sis Shoop

9.9.18

I started my job Wednesday at Mt. View. I can tell I’m really going to like it. I’m very happy about that. The people are really nice there. My little third grade boy is super sweet and funny, too. The only sad thing is that he has a lot of medical problems (that’s why he has a one on one) and is absent a lot. He was already gone on Friday. That makes me have to scramble to find things to do. I don’t like that part. Luckily it’s at the beginning of the year and there are lots of extra little projects to do. 

My dad came home from the hospital yesterday, so it’s been a long week. I’m a little worried about him going home and being able to take care of himself. 

This past few weeks have been a little stressful, but only when I think about it too much. I know I have been blessed with peace because of my Savior. It makes me think of the song for the youth this year, Peace in Christ. Here’s a sweet version of it. https://youtu.be/Waitmz6C100

Today we got to go to Olympia 1st Ward and listen to Austin Falter give his homecoming talk.  It was so good to see him and hear his sweet testimony. He has had a huge positive influence on Keagan. 

(And Keagan is in his new mission suit) :) 

He’s a lot of the youth that were there.

Macey Adams came home two days ago, too. It so fun to see her. I caught this cute picture of Keagan and Macey when he was telling her about his mission call. 

Hazel started a dance class this week! Melissa doesn’t know who was more excited her or Hazel. So cute and I can’t wait to see more pics in the future!

And we’re so excited to see President Nelson next Saturday!! He’s coming to safeco field! The priest and Laurels get to have special seating on the field close to the prophet. That’s probably the only time I wish I could be 16 again! Lol

Have a great week!

Love you all!

Sis Shoop