Ciao, Hola, Hello!

Dear Family,

I used this title because I feel like good old Anziano Barnes right now: This has been the greatest week ever, and I finally feel like I am a missionary! :). I promised myself I would never use those words, and I just used them, but they are true, so whatever!

Wow, miracles!  I have learned so many lessons this week and I finally feel like I am starting to "get it." But don’t worry, I still have a ton to learn so I won’t be bored anytime soon.

On Tuesday night we taught a super Christian, born again Christian. I had prepared a lot for her, because she has some deep and hard questions. She also can turn a little bit into a basher if we let her. During our lesson she spewed out her concerns and all the reasons why our church can’t possibly be true for like 45 minutes. Then we did some crazy how to begin teaching with her and jumped into the best lesson ever! We taught the Plan of Salvation so simply and clearly she understood everything. The spirit was so strong and she agreed to meet with us more often, to read the Book of Mormon, and that our church really might have some points of truth. :) PMG has some really great points :).

This week I discovered that I am super prideful (I also feel like Justin saying this). I think way too much of myself and my own fears. I need to focus on others fears and needs. They need the gospel, and I am here to share it with them! To combat this, a super familiar scripture meant even more this week. Moroni 10:3-4 starts out by talking about remembering how merciful the Lord has been. This is a prerequisite to praying and knowing if the Book of Mormon is true. We must be grateful and able to recognize Gods hand in our lives before we can have faith to act and see if it is true. Cool thought! I have tried to be more grateful this week, seems to be a very common theme in my mission so far. I need to become a more grateful person I suppose. But I love being grateful so I just need to make a small effort to remember to be grateful. This will also help with my pride issues, which will be great!

We met a girl on campus who was holding a "free listening" sign. So we decided to go talk to her. She ended up being super interested and we met up later and shared the restoration with her. She really liked it, and is now a new investigator! Also, a few weeks ago on blitz/exchanges I met this guy. We had an amazing lesson with him, while being on splits. It was super scary to be the only missionary in the lesson. We went on splits with members because we had too many lessons scheduled at that time. But it worked great! Members are such a blessing! He also accepted baptism! Yay! We got a referral for an Egyptian girl, so we went to see her. She lives in a dorm so we had to sneakily walk behind someone to get into the building, then we had to avoid all the RA's because we were supposed to be escorted. But we got there safe and without confrontation. We knocked on her door and she answered. She was SUPER excited to see us! She is legitly from Egypt. She even wears the headscarf. She is mostly looking for good friends, because she has zero friends right now. But we are going to see if we are able to teach her and if she is interested in learning. (with Muslim people we have to be cautious because they can be killed if they convert to Christianity, so we will see!) But we invited her to a baptism, and explained that it was a ritual done to show God we are following him. She really enjoyed it and felt super peaceful when she came, I love her to death and want to share the gospel with her and be her friend forever! 

We were talking to people on campus one day and we saw this girl, we tried to talk to her but she had headphones in and ignored us, later we saw her again and tried talking to her again, this time she listened and we set up a time to visit! Persistence is great! Also we had a baptism in our ward this week. The 1st Ward Elders have been teaching a guy for a while, and just recently discovered he was in our area, but they finished teaching him and he was baptized on Saturday! What a cool kid. Also, cool miracle. On Monday one of the awkward kids we talked to turned out to be his roommate and he has been reading the Book of Mormon. He is just too scared to meet with us, but the guy that was just baptized was amazed that we ran into his roommate off the street. What a surprise it was to him to find his own roommate reading the Book of Mormon a week before he got baptized! :)

There have been so many other miracles this week! Heavenly Father really answers sincere prayers! Some other excitement of the week was our car fast on the same day as our bed bug extermination. So ya, we had bed bugs, only a few. I would have rather just lived with them, but for the sake of the other sisters who exchange here, we decided to get them gone forever. It was annoying to wash everything and move out for a day, but I am grateful for the opportunity to go through a little annoyance and be happy about it! This week I have been so exhausted, we are working so hard! I love missionary work and sharing the gospel, but I am ready for a p-day. What a blessing that Heavenly Father knows that we need a day of rest! I love keeping the Sabbath day holy and having a p-day!

Here is a cool thought: Iron rod is the word of God; word of God is him giving us his word, or making a covenant with us. So covenants are part of holding to the rod. Anyway, I love you all and am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited you get to go back to Nauvoo and be in both pageants, CONGRATS my missionary family! I love you!

Love, Sister Barnes