Miracles!

Hello!

We had a great week! Transfers are NEXT WEEK and we found out that I will be leaving Sister Greenhalgh and going back to the Visitor Center to train a brand new missionary!!!!! AHHH I am so sad to leave Sister Greenhalgh especially since she is right in the middle of her training, but I know that everything will work out and be so good!!:) I can't wait to meet my trainee on Wednesday!!

AJ read AND took notes on the things we asked him to read! He is almost done with all his lessons and is so excited for his baptismal date! Dominique is so prepared for this gospel! We met with her and she told us how she wanted to be baptized and come closer to Christ. She is just the best!

Miracles: We had a lot of tender mercies this week that have been a huge blessing! On Friday, our YSA branch had a temple activity where we all met at the branch president's house for a cook out, and then we all went to the Visitors' Center for a tour. It was so amazing! A lot of the members brought their friends, and we ended up getting 5 new investigators that want us to start teaching them!! It was such a neat experience.

Yesterday at church we had this really sweet family from Ethiopia come to our sacrament meeting. It was a huge miracle! They came up to us and told us they wanted to be baptized! Shilenn (the mom) has such a strong desire for her and her family to be anchored in a good environment with uplifting teachings. We are so excited to work with this family. Another girl came to our YSA branch. Her name is Khaylia. She is so sweet and wants to learn more! There are so many people who are so prepared to receive this gospel.

A quote that has really helped me this week is from the New Era, "The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best medicine for despair is service. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired.” (President Hinckley)  I love this so much! I know that missions are meant for us to forget ourselves and go to work. As we lose ourselves in the work of our Savior, we will find ourselves.

Have a great week!

Sister Freeman

One of our investigators, Seth, took us all out to dinner to get wings 

for Sister Higginsons last night here!

Sister Higginsons LAST night in the mission.

We sure do miss her.

 Sister Greenhalgh got her iPad at her LAST specialized training!

 SISTER LIOU! I love her so much!!

She leaves this Wednesday!:(

One of my favorite pictures of Christ!

9 Months!!:D

Hello!

We found out that poor Sister Greenhalgh has Celiac Disease (she can't eat gluten) and is allergic to dairy. Now that she hasn't been eating those foods, she has been feeling MUCH better! So that has been super good! She is such a trooper! There is this really sweet lady in our ward who has the same allergies and she bought Sister Greenhalgh a ton of food and had us over for dinner. It was so sweet of her.

Things are going so well in the mission! A member took us all out to dinner one night and brought her friend with her named Dominique. She is really interested in learning more and has a lot of really good questions! She came to church yesterday and had a really good experience. She said she felt very comfortable and at peace! She is so golden. We promised AJ we would make him cookies next time we meet with him, so he is pretty excited about that! Seth is hanging in there. He was going to leave church early to go get IHop, but we got him to stay, and he had a really neat experience and told us he was glad he stayed! We had a really neat experience this week while we were doing service for a lady in our ward. While we were outside doing service, her landlord came out and we started to talk with him. He agreed to meeting with us and he actually came to church yesterday as well! The members in our ward are seriously the best. One night this week, we had 3 dinner appointments!!!!! They take good care of us!

We were able to attend a funeral this week for a lady in our ward who passed away. Her husband, PJ,  is not a member and has been super receptive to learning more. We have been doing lots and lots of service for them and when he is ready he agreed to taking the lessons. He wants us to teach his kids as well, so we are super excited to teach them when they get back from Utah. While we were at the funeral, I got the strongest confirmation that there truly is life after we die, and that death is not the end. I know that we all have the ability to return back to our Father in Heaven one day after we are finished here on earth.

I love you all and I hope that you guys have a wonderful week! :) 

Sister Freeman

(Sorry...no pictures this week!)

Hello!!:)

Hello everyone!

We had a pretty awesome week! Sister Greenhalgh has been feeling lot better and is finally keeping food down! So that has been a huge highlight of our week! Training is going so well and she is doing so great!:)

We have four people who have been progressing towards baptism really well. The first person is Richard. CJ brought Richard, his cousin, to church a couple weeks ago. He is from Jamaica and is really awesome. We have been meeting with him and he accepted to be baptized. He is in the process of praying about a date! The second person is Seth. Seth is just so amazing. He had a date to be baptized on the 23rd, but we are going to have to push it back so he is 100% ready. He is progressing more and more every time we meet with him! The third person is Landry! He is so awesome. It is kind of funny, I taught Landry when I was in the DC Second YSA ward, and now he moved to Gaithersburg so we get to teach him! It was pretty exciting! But he has been doing great! He expressed a sincere desire to get baptized! So we have been working with him to help him get there!

The final person is AJ!!!!!!! Ah I love AJ so much! So he is this 13 year old boy that has been living with a family in our ward. He has had a pretty rough life.  But we met with him yesterday and had a good lesson with him. He told us he wanted to get baptized on August 14th!

So we are so excited for that day to come! I love teaching kids so much!

On Thursday we got to go on exchanges, where you go to another area with another companion for the day. I LOVE exchanges and the new things you can learn from others. So I went to Capitol Hill in DC with Sister Farnsworth. WE GOT TO RIDE BIKES! It was the best. We got to meet with a lot of super neat people. We went to check up on a less active and while we were looking for her address, we saw this woman on her balcony. So we pulled up next to her and she looked like she wanted to say something to us, so we went and talked with her. She came down to us and stated how she had been praying for help and then we showed up! This was so exciting and a huge miracle.  Her name was Moniqua and she is excited to meet with the missionaries! We got to go to a nursing home to visit some people. It reminded me of those days when I got to spend some time at a nursing home to get my CNA my senior year. So many memories! So we got to visit with some people there and teach them about Jesus Christ! One guy told us we were angels disguised as sisters! It was so sweet. Capitol Hill is a pretty sketchy area, so at night time we had to do the rest of our work driving in the car. I love riding bikes, it gives you more opportunity to talk to everyone!

On Saturday we had a really neat experience. As we were studying for the day, we all had the impression that we needed to go over to Sister Serga's house and help her clean. So we called her up and drove over to her house. She opened the door for us and just started to cry and hugged us and thanked us so much for coming by. She is the lady that runs the day care and has a bunch of kids running around all day. When we got there, her house was just a mess and she was so tired. So we cleaned up her house! She is the sweetest lady ever! She is such a huge example to me.

Our ward mission leader called us up this past week to come out with us. It was so awesome how miracles always happen when members come out with us! We were able to get into every house that night. So amazing. I love this marvelous work that is taking place.

I am so grateful  for my companions.  I know that we were put together by revelation from the Lord. We will only get Sister Higginson for just a little bit longer, but it has been such an inspired transfer. I have learned so much through the ups and downs. There is this verse in Alma Chapter 26:30, "And we have suffered all manner of afflictions, and all this, that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul; and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some."  I feel like this verse has really described our transfer so far. It has been hard, but the joy that comes from the people we meet makes up for it all.

I love you all!

Sister Megan Freeman

Making Korean food with a member in our Singles ward.

Exchanges with Sister Farnsworth!

Sister Farnsworth

At a ward party... Don't ask what Sister Higginson is doing haha!!

Zone Conference with our new mission president and his wife! Ah I love them so much!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Hello family and friends! I hope you are all having a wonderful Fourth of July! DC knows how to celebrate this holiday that's for sure!;) We have some fun plans today with some members!

We had a pretty crazy week! First of all, Sister Greenhalgh almost died and ended up in the emergency room all day Saturday! Don't worry though, she will live... Hopefully! She hasn't been able to keep any food or liquid down for almost 3 days now! So our new mission mom (Sister Johnson) told us to go to the emergency room with her. They gave her some IVs. When we got back from the emergency room President Johnson and Sister Johnson came by to check up on Sister Greenhalgh!! They are seriously so great! I love them! Sister Johnson has been with Sister Greenhalgh every step of the way! She is the best! We went on some splits with ward members while Sister Greenhalgh has been sick so the work can continue to move forward!

We had a bomb lesson with Seth this week on the Holy Ghost. He told us that God is knocking him in the head with the spirit and that he knows this is the right thing for him. He said he is finally getting what is in his head to his heart! He is shooting to get baptized on July 27th.

On Sunday we were trying to contact a lady in our area book. Her boyfriend answered the door and told us he prefers Spanish so we tried to speak to him but with the poquito Espanol que yo se, I accidentally told him "I like you" instead of nice to meet you!! It was so awkward! But he is interested in meeting with Spanish speaking missionaries, so that is good! Sister Higginson is good at Spanish so that was good! I want to learn it so badly!

I hope you all have a great and safe week! We taught the young women yesterday about taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful to be a missionary and to be able to take Jesus Christ's name upon my heart every day for this short time! I know that this church is true and that God loves us! Miss you all!

Sister Freeman :)

Sisters temple trip!

At the emergency room! :O

Our old mission president and his wife with our new mission president and his wife.

FOURTH OF JULY!

The End of a Great Era...On to a New One!

This took place TODAY in the Washington DC North Mission.  Megan LOVED the Cooke's so much, but I KNOW she is going to LOVE the Johnson's as well.  I can't wait to hear her news this week about all of the changes!  (AND, July 4th is on a Pday, so I'm sure it will be a neat week out in DC for her!)

President Steve Johnson, Sister Beth Johnson, Sister Heather Cooke and President Peter Cooke

July 1, 2016

President and Sister Cooke and their family leaving the mission...this time escorted by the 3 AP's!
"Mike Charlie" -- Mission complete!
Thank you President and Sister Cooke for all you taught my daughter and for your examples to her!