3.4.18

Hi friends!

Yesterday we didn’t have anything we had to do.. of course lots of things we should do.. so I convinced Ray to drive up to Snoqualmie Falls. I, sadly have never been and lived in WA most of my life. Is it sad to say, I was a little disappointed. It was beautiful!! But I think I’ve heard so many things about it being amazing, that it disappointed a little bit. I think because it is just one area. With Multnomah Falls and even Tumwater Falls, there is beauty everywhere around. I did love the mountains all around Snoqualmie! It was so sunny that the photo was glaring with sun.

The mountains reminded me of Utah. 


We had a cute/ fun activity this week for Young women’s- a mad Hatter tea (hot chocolate ) party. We played games and had treats and got chocolate. 


Did you hear the Turners got their mission call? They are going to Barcelona Spain in July to work with young adults. (I copied this from Megan’s Facebook)



Today in one of our meetings we were talking about testimonies. One person was talking about his heartache with a close friend deciding to not believe in the gospel anymore. So, then we talked about the importance of keeping our testimonies strong. It is not a one time thing, but a lifetime of doing things that strengthen our testimonies like all the primary answers of reading our scriptures and saying prayers. It was also noted that its important to understand that everyone has times in their life that they’re not feeling it as much and then it’s time to rely on your testimony from before and do the things you need to do to get back to your testimony. I once heard that your testimony is like an escalator you have to do things to strengthen your testimony then you’re going up. If your not doing anything then you’re going backwards. I’m grateful for my testimony. I know this gospel is true. I love the Book of Mormon. I love that we can have eternal families! I love my family! I know President Nelson is a true prophet of God. 


I love you all!
Sis Shoop
Sent from my iPhone

2.25.18

This week was great and different! We had a four day weekend and got to go to Seaside Oregon Monday night. It was so fun and cold! But at least Monday it was sunny. It was only 37 degrees out on the beach. I still loved it! It was very relaxing and peaceful!

We drove home to snow. We wished we would of stayed another night. Oh well!

So, it was snowing when we came home. Wednesday was a late start, no school Thursday and then regular school Friday, but it snowed more Friday night. Luckily it is all gone now. 


Coming up our street when we came home. 

And I have to have a cute pic of Hazel! ;)

My laurels taught the lesson today and they did an awesome job. The topic was, why do the choices I make matter?
I’m so impressed with them! 

Have a great week! 
Love ya!
Sister Shoop

2.11.18

Sorry I missed last week. I was having too much fun playing with Hazel.. and watching the Super Bowl. 

I can’t remember what I wrote last concerning Melissa and Hazel coming. They didn’t get to come on Ray’s birthday to surprise him because they were both throwing up and couldn’t make their flight. So this time we mostly surprised Ray and had them here for almost a week. I think he knew something was going on, but he wasn’t 100 percent sure.

We got to surprise Gpa Thom, too and meet them at the bowling alley. Hazel went right to him and made his day! It was his 75th bday on Feb 3rd, too and my mom had a surprise bday party for him. So, it was a good weekend for Melissa and Hazel to be here!
She’s reacting to the bowling pins going down. 


We watched the super bowl and we all wore our Seahawks gear. Haha 
She thought she was so funny finding two binks! 



I don’t know if you can get videos or not, but it’s from a Snapchat filter and she recently started to say I love you. Cutest thing ever! ;)

We got her this cute little rolling luggage and she loved pulling it herself. She drags it around the house. She pulled it all by herself at the airport. So cute!

    

I’m always sad to see them go! But so grateful that we get to see them as often as we do for how far away they live!

This week it was actually sunny outside for a little bit. It was a nice break! It has been raining so much here! Ray and I drove Keagan to Lakewood for Makayla’s dance competition. On the way back, we went the scenic route and I’m so glad we did! We went through Steilacoom. It was beautiful!!



It was stake conference this weekend. And it was fabulous! President Esquibel is wonderful and so tender hearted. I love listening to him speak. Saturday night our friend Leilani spoke. She is a recent (2 years) convert. She gave such an awesome testimony and it has been wonderful to see her grow in the gospel. 

And here’s a Valentine for you. Valentine’s day is also the day I was baptized when I was 10... many years ago. 


Have a wonderful week! 
Love ya!
Sister Shoop

Sent from my iPhone

1.28.18

We got to go to a dance competition this weekend to support Jadyn Williamson and Keagan’s special friend.. Makayla. I miss going to Melissa’s dance team competitions. 

Keagan cheering for Yelm instead of North Thurston. 
Melissa’s dance team coach said, I miss the Melissa’s Brother shirt!

From several years ago. 

Tonight. Fun to have Kenzie Redding visiting with us. 


This Hazel of ours. Hahaha one marker in the house.. in a box and she found it. 




I heard that today the Centraila stake was taken out of the Watac (Washington/Tacoma mission). They got put with one of the southern wa missions. They won’t be part of the quad stake activities anymore either, I heard. I’m not 100% on that, though. I heard a rumor that it happened to Elma stake, too, but I’m not sure on that, either. I know..  full of rumors. Hahahahaha. I’ll let you know next week.  More rumors are that our ward will be reorganized soon. We’ll see...  We have regular church next week and then stake conference the next week. Today we had regional conference that was broadcast to us. 

And now with Kenzie we are watching Saturday’s Warrior. It’s on YouTube now and we cast it on the tv. So fun to show Keagan. He’s never seen it before. The original 1989 version. So cheesy and good. Haha. Watch it if you can. 

Have a good week!
Love ya!
Sis Shoop

1.21.18

Thursday was a little sad. It was Ray’s 50th birthday and our big surprise was to have Melissa and Hazel fly out to surprise him. I got a text about 7 a.m. saying that they were both sick, throwing up and couldn’t make it. Ray took it better than I did.. of course I had known for a few weeks and was really looking forward to it and he had just found out. Luckily her ticket had only cost $39 round trip and she got some of it back in a credit. So sometime in the next few weeks she’ll surprise us..

Melissa and Family got a membership to the children’s museum in Denver. They’ve already used it a couple of times.

Tuesday morning was so great to hear from our new Prophet, President Nelson. As I watched the news conference and later the press conference, the spirit touched my heart and (and my eyes) and confirmed to me that President Nelson is a true prophet of God. We had the unique and awesome experience today, too of having ward conference.  That usually isn’t such a unique experience, but it was awesome to raise my hand to sustain President Nelson and the first presidency and apostles. It was one of my favorite things when I served in my stake calling.
I have loved reading about him and getting to know him. 

This is one of my favorite pictures I have seen of him... from a year ago. 

Oh and also.. we got a new bishopric member today. Nick Hopkins. Funny thing was when Ray and I walked in, we saw him and he was clean shaven (he usually has facial hair) and a suit coat which he never wears and we turned to each other and said we knew it was him from that. Haha. He will do great. The only sad thing is that he was the scout master- 2nd Counselor in ym and that will be hard to replace.

And I got my hair cut shorter.. I drove to Centralia to have Kenzie Redding cut it. I like it. And it was fun to hang out with her!

Love ya all!
Sis Shoop
Sent from my iPhone

1.14.18

What a great week. And next will be great too. I have so many things to be thankful for. I’m blessed to have so many people in my life that love me and I love them! Everyone who I send his letter to is important to me for some reason and I have special memories and thoughts of you! One of the things I like most is keeping in touch with people who have touched my life and I have been friends with. This week was my birthday and it was so nice to get so many notes, messages and texts. I feel blessed! I was spoiled!

Next week is Ray’s 50th bday and I can hardly wait to share his surprise! Next week! I will (sigh) keep it a secret! Ha!

This year the youth theme is D &C 19:23

23 Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me.

I love it! I love that whatever is going on in our lives and usually it is a little crazy.. whatever it may be, the Savior can give us peace. Even when we think it may not be that big of a deal, if it is a “deal” to us, if we pray about it, have faith, we can have peace. That doesn’t mean that the problem will be taken away, but we can have peace and comfort in our lives. As we listen to his words, we can have that comfort and peace. 

Sometimes I can’t sleep at night. I’m always able to go to sleep, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m awake for a couple of hours. When this happens, I listen to conference talks and the Mormon channel. It used to make me feel bad that it pulled me to sleep, but then I had this thought and I believe it to be true, that these things lulled me to sleep because they calmed my soul, brought me peace so I could sleep. The Mormon channel has soooo many great things to listen to! My favorite is stories from general conference! Try it sometime! Another favorite they took off and I had to go search for it, it was History of the hymns. There is an episode on there about the song, “Where can I turn for peace?” It is so good. 

Here is he link if you can look up those things. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/history-of-hymns-the-evolution-of-lds-hymns/id320655835?mt=2&i=1000061680055

That is for iTunes, but I’m pretty sure you could google it, too. 

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Me and Keagan almost ready for church. 

And a couple Hazel pics

And Aurora’s Snapchat to me. 

Love you all!

Sis. Shoop

1.7.18

It’s so weird to write the date as 2018! 

Funny story this week.. one of the rms That has stayed at our house (Steven Pederson) puts up a lot of Snapchat pics. I was looking at them.. he was at a friend’s wedding in North Carolina. In one of the videos, I could of sworn that Hayden Oliver was in the video. I played it over and over, trying to figure out if it was him. (Hayden is a long time family friend who is close to Melissa’s 

Age)

(My screenshot)

I looked on Facebook to see if they were friends.. and they weren’t .. so I thought it may be someone else and then got busy and forgot about it. The next day I get a message from Pederson asking me how I know Hayden Oliver. It is him! Ha! Small world! Hayden was the best man!



This week with the passing  of President Monson, I’ve been pondering on the great life he has lived. Here are some of the quotes I like the best. (He has so many!)







(I hope these are all things he said.. I didn’t fact check..)

Melissa and Family made it safely to Denver Saturday evening. They are now living in Northglenn Colorado. We can’t wait to go visit them! We were looking at airfare and found air tickets as cheap as $39 round trip to Seattle! We couldn’t believe it! They are cheap.. but that is really cheap, mostly I’ve seen around $100 roundup. (Which is still awesome)!

Keagan staring at Precious. Hahaha

I love it when I get random messages. Mathew in the army now. He sent me this. 


And one of Hazel shopping for stuff for their new place. Lucky girl. Happy parents. ;)


Have a good week. (It’s my old lady week.. my bday)

Love ya,
Sis Shoop