1.2216

Sorry I didn't write last week, I wasn't feeling well.
Starting to feel better this week.
Tonight was the missionary fireside. I love these and have so many fond memories of them! I love the spirit there. I love the testimonies of the new converts. I love the music! I love seeing missionaries that have been in our ward. And I love thinking of my missionaries that have gone home and the special place they have in my heart!
Tonight, I got to meet a new Elder, Elder Jenks. He is the nephew of my good friend Angela Redding that lives near Boise that we stay with often. She used to live in Lacey. So that was fun meeting him!
One of the nuggets I heard tonight was, I was just snacking on the Gospel, I needed to be feasting.
Also in Sunday school, Will God's work be done? Yes, it will. Am I doing all I can to help it be done?
Keagan had the winter formal stake dance this weekend. He looked so handsome. He didn't want his picture taken.. so I just got weird pics..

Oh, that boy! Love him!


I love when I get messages like this of more than one of my favorite people!!


We found this new park in Tumwater that overlooks the Capitol and water. And Mt Rainier. I don't know why we didn't know about it before, so now when you come visit, it will be one of our new places to take you. Beautiful! Pictures don't do it justice! And it was cloudy.

And cute Hazel pictures!!!


We love FaceTime!


We adore her!
Have a great week!
Lots of love!
Sister Shoop
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1.8.16

I've been sick the last couple of days so I'll keep this brief. I missed going to church. I watched BYU devotionals during church time. It always seems strange not going and I really miss taking the sacrament.
This week seems really long, but it was a shorter week.
This crazy cold weather I see everywhere is so crazy! I'm already looking forward to spring!
Here's some funny pictures of Hazel. She likes drinking water from a straw.


Poor Keagan.. he got locked out this week for an hour or so.

Love everyone.
Have a good week!
Sis shoop

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1.1.17

Happy New Year!

We had such a great time in Utah and loved being with our family and friends there!

The many cute faces of Hazel! She's so fun and has so much personality!

Well.. it was an adventure getting home! We left Monday afternoon hoping to get to Boise at an early time and to visit our friends the Reddings and then get an early start and be home Tuesday at a reasonable time. 

So much for plans...

We were only driving an hour when the check engine lights came on in Layton Utah. We pulled over and found a mechanic. Good/bad - they couldn't find anything wrong with our car, they said they could look at it the next day, but it could take a few days to get it fixed if/when they could figure it out. We decided to start going further down the road. 

Just another half hour near Ogden, it did the same thing, even a little worse. We decided that we were going to go try to trade it! It sounds a little crazy.. even to us, but we didn't want our car to totally die before we could get something out of it and we didn't want to go into that area past Bringham city that there is nothing. 

So, we found a dealership in Brigham City  (can you believe that you can see The Brigham city temple from their front window!) and 4 hours later we walked out with a 2016 Dodge Caravan. Crazy! We love it. 

That night we drove to Twin Falls. We got to go drive around the temple there. All temples are beautiful! I love the peaceful feeling I feel just by seeing and walking around a temple!

That morning we were on our way home and there was a huge sign above the freeway saying I84 closed at Ontario Oregon through Pendleton!

The Redding family to the rescue!! We got to stay with them for the afternoon and night because of the closed road and bad weather conditions. It was a nice detour to visit with our good friends and to see their family. I got to visit with Lauren and Kelly, too. 

They also drove us past the Meridian Idaho temple that they are building. Completion date is set for September 2017. It is beautiful! It's pretty big, too. 

We left Wednesday morning. The first part of the drive was a little scary. We were never so happy to come down out of the blues and see no snow! 

When we got home.. we found our refrigerator had died. Crazy!

But, life is good! 

Today we started talking about President Hinckley in Relief Society.  We will be studying his words this year. We watched a video about his life. I'm grateful to have known him and felt his love and optimism for life. I know he was a true prophet of God. I miss him.   

 

One of his many great quotes that I love. 

• “Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart.”

  
  

  For those of you who want to, I updated my blog with all of our Utah adventures. There are a few posts. http://rdmkshoop.blogspot.com/?m=1

  
  

  Love you all!

  Sister Shoop

  
  

  • “Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart.

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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