February 2, 2015 ~ Week 50 (5th week Arlington)

Week 5 Arlington
Family and Friends,

I don't know if you have seen on your Facebook, most likely not because this is something that has only been spread in Jacksonville and Utah, but we have done, "Discover the Book...again", all because the Book of Mormon Broadway Musical is coming to Jacksonville on February 3-8. We have been trying to get as many members to post their pictures with their testimonies of the Book of Mormon on Facebook for the past 3 days. It has been a great turnout with over a quarter of a million people invited to participate.

In addition to this Facebook event, 24 missionaries in our mission have been hand-selected to go on the streets of downtown Jacksonville right outside of where the Book of Mormon musical is playing, and declare their testimonies of the Book of Mormon and invite others to really find out for themselves by reading the tangible evidence, that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. I am completely honored and blessed to be one of those 24 hand-selected missionaries to go and defend my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this week. I will be able to go with 11 other missionaries (two groups that switch off every other day) on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I am so excited. On some nights, we will be up until 12:00 midnight sharing our testimonies of the Book of Mormon. What a neat opportunity.

At Church yesterday, a return missionary's family came back with her to visit the Arlington ward, I met her younger sister, Miranda and we connected so quickly because she happens to be a dancer too! She went to Sweden for 5 months last year to study ballet there. So neat! She is still in high school, but she, like me was hesitant on serving a mission. Leaving behind a talent that became a part of my being. I thought long and hard about that as I was sitting in the third hour of church yesterday and decided to write her a note about when she would come to the time to prayerfully decide to serve a mission. A promised blessing came into my mind as I was writing her, Doctrine & Covenants 21:9 "For behold, I will bless all those who labor in my vineyard with a mighty blessing..." I have definitely felt that blessing as I have gone a whole entire year without taking a single dance class to keep myself in dance shape. Whenever we give our lives to the Lord, He blesses us tenfold.

This last experience was fun. I was going through our area book which is jam packed with potentials and even some with just phone numbers and no addresses. So I decided to call them all up while Sister Murray was driving, and this one woman Jojo answered the phone. She invited us over for lunch this past Tuesday. We went over and had the most solid Restoration lesson. She said that if she found the Book of Mormon to be true, that she would run over to the church and be baptized. The Spirit is the true converter, not us.

Love, Sister McCook