Hello dear friends and family!! Sorry I don't have tons of time to write today, but since I didn't get anything out last week, I think an update is in order! 

So Duvall is super beautiful. Farms, trees, sunsets that look like water-colored paintings! Really it is like living in a fairy tale, the land is so beautiful. This past week, however, was a little rocky in our picturesque town. I have never had so many doors slammed in our faces! Haha I mean, it is fine. An adventure for sure! But pretty much every one here is pretty religious, so when we come knocking they are not too happy. But we do also meet a lot of really awesome nice people! We have this one investigator named Dan who lives out in the sticks. He is such a sweet heart! He basically treats us like his grandchildren, and wears the shortest shorts I have ever seen old men wear. But we love him anyways :) this week we had a really great lesson with him and an older member couple. It turns out that all of them have been in biker gangs before! We have the coolest members out here :) but yah, hopefully Dan will be able to come to church this coming week! 

We also had a lot of investigators drop us this week. Well, I don't think you could really call them investigators. Really they were just people who had decided to be nice to us when we knocked on their door, told us that we could come back, but really were not interested at all when we showed up. Funny how some people just don't think that we are very serious :) We also tracked into a haunted house!!! Just kidding, it probably isn't haunted. But it sure looks like it! The cool thing about Redmond is that there are wild black berry bushes literally everywhere. And so this awesomely scary looking house is quite completely covered in these bushes, which makes it even more awesome! no one answered when we knocked on it, but there was definitely something moving inside. We haven't exactly decided if we are going to go back and try it again yet.... :) 

And I got to see a man's turtle farm this week!!!! Oh my goodness, so we were walking down this road after visiting someone, and there is this man working in his front lawn. We, of course, asked if he needed any help, seeing as he was the only one working on distributing this huge pile of bark in his driveway. He thinks for a second, shrugs his shoulders, and goes "sure, follow me." So we follow this man to his backyard where he shows us his TURTLE FARM! He explained that he takes care of over 150 turtles, and has over 200 animals total. And so he let us help him move the turtles, clean out their bins, and basically he just showed us around. It was awesome!! I was so upset when I realized that I didn't have my camera with me :( but we made sure to give him our number in case he ever needed more help. So pray that he calls us soon so that I can get some pictures for ya'll! :) 

Basically I am learning a lot while being out here. It is soooo different than any where else I have served in my mission, and it has been quite the adjustment. But I have been able to learn a lot about how patience and diligence are true signs of love. If we are not patient and diligent, we will never be able to prove to anyone that we love them, especially our Heavenly Father. I pray that as we all go through this new week we can be more diligent patient with those around us. The golden rule does not become any less important or significant the older it gets. That is something that I have truly found to be crucial to a Christ-like life. And the awesome thing is that as we read in the scriptures and pray we truly can develop those attributes and they will become a part of our nature. The gospel is so great :) 

I love you all so much! Let us all have an amazing week together :) 

con amor,

la hermana brooks