Miracles!

Dear Family,

Keep looking for people to teach here in Arizona for our wonderful missionaries in this mission. Let me know who you find! Thank you!

This week has been fantastic! We seriously have the BEST investigators in the whole world. I love them all SO much! We have been meeting with A. way more often and she is doing great! She loves meeting with us, and coming to the Institute. She feels the spirit so strong and all of her stress is wiped away when she comes. When we first met her she told us she loved looking into other religions and didn’t ever plan on joining just one. But this week she told us that she didn’t want to keep searching and looking into different religions. She had found the one! Also on Sunday she had her prayers answered during gospel principles. She had it reconfirmed to her that the church is true and the Book of Mormon is true and that she wants to get baptized! Then from church she realized that she is not even scared to get baptized anymore. She is getting baptized on March 22nd. I love A.! She is so sweet!

K. is SO great! She is seriously doing so well! We taught her the word of wisdom and she understood most of it, but was having a hard time understanding tea. We gave it a day and talked about it again. She realized that joining the church is way worth giving up tea, then threw away her almost filled punch card for a coffee place. She is gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. And bore her testimony to us; it was so powerful, we were all crying! She desires to have a really strong testimony like us and others that she sees and wants to go on a mission someday :) she was thinking a senior couples mission, but we will see :). She should be getting baptized on March 15th!

We have been really trying hard with J., and he still had some concerns about living prophets. Key word here is had. On Sunday he got up and bore his testimony for fast and testimony meeting (next week will be the Gilbert temple dedication broadcast :)!) He publicly thanked Sister Hendricks and I for changing his life and said that he had received his answer to prayer and that he didn’t have a testimony of prophets yet, but he was willing to accept their good teachings. He has a lot more progress to make. But he has decided to be baptized on March 4th, and he is super excited! We will see how that adventure goes, as that is transfer day... I am so proud of him though, what a great miracle! Also, please pray for him and his testimony. Also, please pray for Sister Hendricks and I so we can know how to best help him this next week and a half. 

We had interviews with President Killpack this week. I love President and Sister Killpack so much! I am so blessed to have them in my life! I was able to reflect on the last three months and set goals for the future. I realized my biggest change has been with talking with people. I went from being terrified and really awkward, to only slightly afraid, way less awkward, and really starting to love it! I know this is only possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Real change happens! I found a cool scripture about talking with everyone- Alma 5:49.

We found a new investigator this week named R., we taught him a mini first lesson and he accepted baptism and a date! Then ten minutes later he dropped us. But then 5 minutes later a less active texted us and wanted to meet at the same time we had set the appointment for R. It was way cool to see how we are called to be the Lord’s hands and do His things His way. Also that he really does send us the people that are ready, this guy clearly wasn’t ready, but this less active is ready to come back! Also, we had three people reactivated this month! They are all doing well and have made huge progress! We have a few other less actives that are doing really well. We got one girl super excited to go to the temple. She has never been because she is also a recent convert.

On Saturday we had a ton of miracles! A lot of our lessons canceled- which was not the miracle, but provided the way for the miracles to occur! We went to Umart again and found M! She is still interested in the church, and has been looking for us on campus! But she is in 5th ward, but that is ok. I am sent to this mission to give golden investigators to the 5th ward sisters (this happened with R. in SV too :)). After talking with M. we talked with the other girls working there too and ended up giving a mini Book of Mormon lesson with a member who came with us, they weren’t interested but it was cool! Then we met a sweet potential that went to seminary back in Phoenix and is super excited to learn more. After that a different member took us out to lunch and we ran into my Egyptian friend, who is going to come to waffles on Tuesday! Then we ran into an older Native American gentleman. He turned out to be less active. But we got to talk to him and he commented on how we have a light about us! You bet we do, and you can have it too!

The last miracle was on Sunday. We get to teach a lot of young adults, which is such a sweet blessing. But the biggest miracles come with their families who definitely have their hearts soften about the church. A lot of these families are super anti at first. This includes J's family. His parents came to visit and I was able to talk with his mom for a while. She has been really anti but I was able to explain some things to her. She started asking me questions and I helped her understand the Book of Mormon and a lot of what we believe. She is super open now, and J. is so happy! They are taking us and the fifth ward sisters out to dinner tonight, so we will see how that goes! :) What a huge blessing and opportunity for me to be able to speak to her though. It was amazing to see her just melt as I taught her the gospel. I have full faith that all of these RCs families will be softened and one day join the church!

I love being a missionary, and I love each one of you! Thank you for all you do to support the Lord in His work! Have a wonderful Monday and a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Barnes

Another Fantastic Week

Caving/spelunking on P-day

Bishop Cannata, wife and granddaughters with the missionaries

Tucson YSA 3rd Ward members and missionaries

This was another fantastic week, full of excitement, miracles, blessings, and amazing children of Heavenly Father! I love being a missionary!!!

Last week on P-day we were able to go caving/spelunking. It was super duper fun! But we ended up getting lost for like two hours! So we prayed, and our Sister Training leaders- Sister Sanchez and Sister Longstaff found us and showed us the way out, cool symbolism, I think yes! Anyway, we were still able to make it back and out by six o clock, so it worked out! That night at FHE we were in the spiritual lesson of a family. Sister Hendricks turns to me and asked if we could go contact outside instead of just sitting in FHE with all members. We decided that this could be a good idea so we went. There was no huge spiritual prompting to go outside, we just thought it might be something a little bit better to do. So we did it! We talked to a few people outside the institute, and nobody was interested. Then we talked to another girl. We got to know her a little bit and found out that she knows a member of our ward pretty well. In fact, this member was in the institute for FHE! We invited her in to have a church tour. She loved the artwork and we found her friend! When we went to show her the chapel we got to talk. It turns out that she had prayed for God to surprise her today- surprise, here are the missionaries! Her friend had prayed for an opportunity to share her testimony, bam the missionaries bring her friend to the institute! And we had prayed for a new investigator- bam! You get the picture; it was amazing to see all of our prayers answered! Two days later we had a lesson with her. It went pretty good, she understood a lot of it. She is super strong Catholic and has a really amazing desire to serve God. She took the invitation to be baptized really hard. It was like a huge ton of bricks hit her in the face. I know we are supposed to invite, and I don’t feel bad about inviting, but she was super overwhelmed. So we ran out to our car and prayed for her. We ended up seeing her the next day and smoothing things over a little with her. We will have to see how it goes, she did accept to meet with us again. Please pray for her!

Also we got way better at teaching, we were bold, didn’t dance around things and taught in unity.  We dropped a few investigators, but it feels good when you know you have taught them all you could!

Also, it has been a year since I received my endowment in the Provo temple. I LOVE the temple and am so grateful for the blessings of it!

*Thanks for all who sent packages and letters this week, it was greatly appreciated!

We learned what thirsty Thursday is, and experienced not only thirsty Thursday, but also thirsty Friday and Saturday. One of our great investigators said on Valentines Day "Jesus didn’t need someone to love, he just shared His love." How true! I am grateful for love, and being able to teach a few law of chastity lessons on valentines day:) oh, Happy Valentines Day! This week was so amazing, I love being a missionary, and I love Sister Hendricks, and I love third ward, and I love my family, and all my friends. Thanks for all you do. I love you! Moroni 8:3 :)

Love, Sister Barnes

I will have to read my journal to you when I get home to share all the amazing experiences that happen, an hour is just not enough time to get them all in!!!!

More Miracles and More Mercy!

Dominating p-day basketball! But Sister Barnes still loves missionary work way more!

On exchanges with Sis Longstaff

Dear Family,

This week was really great! Tuesday we went on an exchange, I went with Sister Longstaff, whom I love! I learned a ton and we saw many miracles! Saddest part of the exchange is one of our great investigators moved to Mexico. It was our last lesson with him, and I forget how much I love these people, and then they move and I remember quite quickly how much I really love them! Also, we were driving to try a less active, but then I had the thought that we should maybe get back so we could be in time for dinner because the traffic was really bad. We ended up taking a way faster way home and were home 10 minutes early. But when we pulled into the parking lot, M. texted us and asked if she could have a lesson with us. It ended up being a huge answer to her prayers and we were able to strengthen her and help her keep going. What a miracle! I am grateful for the subtle ways the spirit works for us!

Wednesday we had the most AMAZING zone training ever! It is by Tad R. Callister and called "Becoming a Master Teacher." I would recommend it to everyone! Holy cow, I have already improved in my teaching a lot, and I have so much more room to grow! The thing I realized this week though, is that I need to be grateful for the teaching abilities that Heavenly Father has given me. I am so blessed with a lot of abilities in teaching and other things, and I am not usually grateful for them. I usually just focus on all the many things I need to be doing better at and fail to have an attitude of gratitude for what I do have. Know, that this is going to change! I am going to be grateful along with my striving to be better. I know that the Lord will bless me in my weaknesses, as I am grateful for my strengths. Yay for gratitude! Also, I really feel like the one theme of my mission is gratitude. I am also glad I get to learn gratitude, even though I am in America. I used to think I could only learn the lesson of gratitude by going to some place like Africa, but I am grateful I can still learn it, even though I am in America. 

Here are a few updates on people and also some great applications we had of becoming a master teacher...

MK. is the girl we met on our 9-month birthday when we bought ice cream! She showed up to her appointment and we taught her. She is so prepared! She has had similar Joseph Smith prepared stories! Her lesson was almost perfect! The coolest part for me, was implementing part of the ZLs training. During the most spiritual part of the lesson I invited her to be baptized by someone holding the priesthood of God. She accepted, even though we hadn't even mentioned the Book of Mormon yet! It was so cool! I am going to continue to capitalize on the most spiritual part of the lesson like that! Her baptismal date is on March 8th!

Last Sunday’s miracle of praying for an investigator and going and finding H. turned out great! He is so solid! Also, his lesson was a miracle. We were running late, and he had got in a car accident so we decided to just meet at our apartment complex for the lesson. We had a great lesson with him and he is so excited to join the church, his baptismal date is March 8th. That was a miracle! But the biggest miracle came because we were at our apartment complex!

We saw a potential, it turns out she might be moving into our complex. So I invited her to come have a tour of our apartment. She said she would love one in a little bit. She actually came and asked for one again as we were giving H. the first vision, but it worked out! We told her to wait for like ten minutes :). He still felt the spirit. So we had A. and her future roommate come into our apartment to check it out. Mom, you would have been so proud, our apartment is usually very clean, and today it was very clean and neat. We showed them around and talked to them for a little bit. We got to tell them about being missionaries and pretty much bear our testimonies to them. The spirit was so strong! It was so nice to help them feel the spirit in a member’s home, even though that member’s home was ours. I understand now why keeping a clean house is so important. A clean home, with the spirit is one of the greatest missionaries tools anyone can ever have! It is the reason Al. is investigating, and the reason why so many other people we meet on the street will talk to us. Keep being good examples as members of the church and keep your homes as the temple- clean, orderly, and filled with the spirit. Or at least as much as you are able to with crazy kids running around :).

I love you all and I love being a missionary! Thank you for all your support and kindness!

Love, Sister Barnes (aka Sister Sunshine :)

I LOVE MIRACLES!!!

This week ... celebrating 9 months as a missionary!

The Plan of Salvation outside the Institute...

Dear Family,

WOW, this week has been so super amazing, I can hardly stand it! Last night I realized what an amazing week we had and got super excited that I finally get to share it with you!! Thanks for you prayers, whatever you are doing; it is working, so keep it up!

The week started out a little hard. I received some news that really made me think. I heard of three separate people all going through hard times, that can be summarized as sin, death, and not being able to accept the gospel in this life. These all weighed heavily on my mind, but as I thought about them, I realized that these are all the problems in the plan of salvation. I then realized that because of Jesus Christ our brother and Savior, we can all overcome each one of these, and I read a great chapter on this in Mormon 9, super amazing! So here it is, I know Jesus Christ lives and that He is my Savior. He is the head of this church and His atonement is real and can work for each one of us every day in our everyday labors if we believe and act on that belief, choose to change, keep our promises with him, and strive to be worthy of the Holy Ghost. aka the gospel of Jesus Christ, it really works! I am also grateful that after one night/day of pondering these things I could turn them over to Heavenly Father and He made this burden be made light so I could focus on other important things. Also, I love the plan of salvation, or the plan of happiness! It is such a blessing! Also, a member- Ali, drew the plan in front of the Institute and we got to talk to a lot of people about it, I included some pictures.

My mom will be thrilled at this next bit of what I learned. I learned that when I am organized in my work, such as calling ahead, using the area book to its full use, keeping the house clean, etc, it creates room and space for more people to be fit into our schedule. Here is the result, organization= more people that Heavenly Father can trust us with=more people to teach= more people baptized= happiness= eternal life. So I am going to continue to try to be more organized so I can be a more effective and more useful servant of the Lord!

Here is the update/miracles of the week....

A. is doing so great! She really doesn’t have much background of anything, so she just soaks in everything we say. Her desire comes from feeling the spirit in member’s homes, and she knows she wants it. She is making so many sacrifices with her schedule to meet with us almost everyday, so we make room for her best we can as well. She also got to go to the Gilbert Temple open house, and she loved it! I am so glad! She is such an amazing girl and is on track for getting baptized this month!

J. is also doing surprisingly well. We had some average lessons with him, but then his fellowshipper’s dad came to one. This good brother is also a lot like a father figure to him. He showed him love, bore his testimony, believed in him. Now he has a baptism date and is progressing super well!!! Miracle because of a great loving member, I need to believe and have faith more in the investigators we have.

H.is also doing great! He read Moroni 8, which is one of my favorite chapters. He said that infant baptism has never made sense to him and he loves this chapter! Also we got to have dinner with his mom and him, and the Spanish sisters. We had the most amazing Mexican food. I am in love with horchata! I drank like 3 cups!

A. finally got to meet with us again! She is so solid! We haven’t seen her for like a month, and it was a good month. She said that because she is still interested after all this time, she really wants to join! Also, she ate up the Restoration; she loved it and felt the spirit. She told us that she could be ready for baptism if she came to church every week, read the book everyday, and prayed everyday, and met with us once a week! Wow, that is a missionaries dream, we then corrected her that we could meet with her multiple times a week. And all was set in place, she loved church too! Miracles!!!

We decided we needed pray with more faith, act in more faith and expect miracles. So we prayed before going into dinner asking for a new investigator. While walking into the apartment complex, we saw a guy and talked to him... we ended up having an amazing lesson with him! He has felt the spirit and wants this so bad!!! I am so happy for him, it was such a miracle!!!! I wish I could share even more, but I am running out of time. This also happened twice yesterday so we were able to get 3 new investigators this week.

And for the first time on my mission we reached the standards of excellence for our mission, which is a huge feat! I am so grateful Heavenly Father has blessed us with this!!! Also, Sis. Hendricks and I celebrated our 9 months in the field by getting ice cream and meeting some potential investigators. We are being so blessed and I love being a missionary!!!

Love, Sister Barnes!