Dear family,
This week has
been... awesome! Like every week is here on the mission. I love being a missionary;
I still get excited every time I put on my nametag. What an honor to be a missionary!
I am so happy that more and more members are catching the vision that they ARE
missionaries too! Some of them are not the greatest or most obedient
missionaries, but they can work on it.
So some news that I
should probably share first, we got our gas!
YAY! The guy came today, so I will be taking nice hot showers from now on! But
I have had some very cool experiences and neat lessons learned from no gas. As
part of our New Testament challenge form President, I read Romans 5 earlier
this week. What I learned from it is that we need to have a good attitude and
"glory in our afflictions." Basically we need to have a good attitude
amidst our trails. We also need to be grateful for them. Everyday this week I
have thanked my Father in Heaven for this great opportunity to have no gas.
Then in Romans it promises us that if we will do this, our faith will grow, we
will feel the Lord’s love in our lives more, and receive his blessings more in
our lives. Moral of the story, be positive and grateful in your trials and you
will feel the power of the Atonement more in your life. It is pretty awesome!
Along with working on being more positive, I have been working on serving with
more enthusiasm. I know this sounds weird, but even I need to work on these
things. They are what help me fight off the devil. I realized this when we had
a lesson with R. We have kind of backed off her so she doesn't feel
stressed, and it has been helping so much! But after not seeing her this week,
I was so excited to share a lesson with her. She wanted to keep going off on
random tangents but didn't because she could see how much what we had to share
with her meant to us. Basically by being enthusiastic and happy about what we
were sharing, we were able to share and she was willing to be shared to. She is
doing really well, she is having amazing experiences with the Holy Ghost and we
are helping her recognize that they are the Holy Ghost. She will be baptized
one day, I have no doubt.
On Tuesday, we
decided to go through and visit some of those people we have no idea who they
are and it worked great! We pulled up to a guy’s home and we felt the spirit
strongly. But we couldn’t decide if it was telling us to leave or to stay. All I
knew is that something big was going to happen, whether good or bad, I didn’t
know. We almost drove away, but I decided we should probably just act in faith
and the worst that could happen is that we would get shot and go live with
Heavenly Father, which isn't too bad. So we went and knocked. We met the family, the wife is Catholic. But her and her less active husband have been
discussing their 13-year-old son and how he needs to be baptized. They
let him choose what church he wanted to get baptized into and he chose the
Mormon Church. Then who is to show up a few days later, but the Mormon
missionaries! Basically, we got a referral from a catholic to baptize her son,
that doesn't happen everyday; we will see how it goes! We also met another part
member family. They told us we could come back another time, which is great. All
of this happened in the space of like 15 min. It was a really good 15 minutes!
On Wednesday we
went and did the food bank again. I am super tight with all of those people,
mostly non-members and love them! I love working at the food bank, it is one of
my favorite things. While there I saw C.!!! The same C. we had
amazing lessons with a few months ago, who then ran away from home. It was a
relief to see her alive, and also a cool spiritual experience. I saw her and
she was trying hard to avoid me, because she has NOT been doing good things
while she’s been gone. But I ran up to her and gave her a big hug! I asked her
how she was, and just told her how much I loved her. In that moment I felt like
Heavenly Father and how he must feel. A few months ago, when she
wanted to change her ways, she prayed and felt God’s love for her and His
overwhelming joy that she wanted to change and do better. Now that love was
still there and just as strong, but it was so sad. I wanted to cry when I saw
her because she is not happy. I hope I can always do the right things so Heavenly
Father never has to feel that way about me. But I know that he will ALWAYS love
me, and he will always love each one of his children.
Cool member
missionary experience. Our less active that we are working with got hit
by a car this week, while riding her bike. When the lady asked her if she was
ok and was very shocked, she invited her to church! I LOVE P.!!!!!!! She
is doing great! I think I might try to get hit by a car this week as a finding
activity... just kidding. Ir. has a baptism
date- December 28th, it will be a miracle if it happens, but if God wills, and
she can feel good enough to come to church, it will happen! She is doing
surprisingly well. We are dreaming of a white Christmas! :)
Being a missionary
is so great, I love it! I love each one of you just as much as I love the
people I am serving! Which is quite a lot. I hope and pray that you will seek
to be close to your Savior and my Savior Jesus Christ who is the source of all
happiness!
Love, Sister Barnes
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