Looking forward! #becauseofHim

Happy 20th Birthday Sister Sunshine!

Dear Family,

I love you so much! This week has been great I am looking forward to another great week! Some great things are happening: we are going to the temple tomorrow!!!!! So many memories with so many great people, thank you to all who has ever been to the temple with me! Also K. is getting baptized this week! YAHOO!!! We are so pumped! So many good covenants being made with so many people, I am glad I get to be a part of helping others make covenants!

The church put out a sweet website last week for Easter- becauseofHim. Which was SO GOOD! We showed the video to every single person we could and it was so amazing! It never got old, and now to motivate each other Sister Clark and I sing music in the background, never ceases to pump us up!

I studied pride and humility this week, and listened to several pride talks. This made me realize how prideful I am, holy cow! But I can change and now I know what I can change! Heavenly Father really helped me not beat myself up by putting my favorite song in my head- Ill go where you want me to go. This song was a theme of one of my days. Sister Clark and I both opened up to it for our comp study opening song, then it played in the institute, then we learned about it in district meeting. Heavenly Father is so funny!

K. IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!!! On Friday at 7pm she will be getting baptized, we are so excited! We had a sweet lesson with her this week where we helped her teach us the restoration! It was so powerful. Our lesson was in this small kind of ghetto classroom we call the closet. During our lesson and right after I asked her "why do you know the church is true" one of the lights flickered on super bright. Brighter than I had ever seen it on before. We were all super shocked and amazed! She really does know it is true and can’t wait to be baptized; we are hoping and praying her family will be able to come!

Our used to be less-active N. is also doing great! At the end of our lesson we asked if we could do anything for him. He said yes, which is unusual! He asked if he could come to more lessons with us so he could teach more people.... DUH! We were so happy, we will be having him at a lot more of our lessons, and we think he will be able to touch many people with his amazing story similar to Alma the younger!

M. is doing great, she loved the because of him video, and made it to church! We got to skype her one day when her lung collapsed again, but she is doing pretty good! We also had another lesson with her and were going to read Moses 1. We asked her what she had studied and said that for some reason she had read Moses 1 and didn’t understand it. So we went over it and she knew a little better that she really is a daughter of God. When you don’t know how to fix someone’s problems, help them realize who they are -- a spiritual son or daughter of God. That almost always works to fix their problems! Also, charity is another fallback :)

The weather was super cool this week! Cool as in interesting, not cold. It is actually getting quite hot, I don’t know if I am ready for it yet... But on Friday it was overcast and gloomy (same day Christ died on the cross) Saturday was too... But Sunday was a beautiful, clear and bright Arizona spring day! Because HE is Risen!!! Yay for Easter!

On Saturday a guy got baptized into our ward, the elders taught him. He is a HUGE Samoan football player for the U of A. He is 6'6'' and almost 300 pounds. He can bench over 500 pounds! He is huge! He had this awesome little kind of nerdy proper white guy baptize him. He could barely lift him up out of the water, but he did it! It was a super sweet day and an awesome weekend for a baptism! We also got some sweet potentials this week and a few news! It was great! We always seem to get new investigators on holidays, which is so awesome! I love it!

Easter we were able to go and visit J.'s mom which was a little scary but we were excited! She had told him not to send us over or else, but he told her that she would have to be ready because he was going to send us over. We took a member with us who knows Spanish. The visit went super well! Her heart has been softened so much! We couldn’t understand what she said but our hearts definitely connected! We showed her the because of Him video in Spanish which was way cool! She told us to come back! So next time we will go over with the hermanas so they can start teaching her! It was such a neat experience, and it is always great to hear how great J. is doing! He goes to church every week and probably has the priesthood by now! I miss that guy!

Here is what I learned from this week...so much!

The Savior's Atonement is specific. He died for every single one of us. His sacrifice covers each fear that we have about the unknown future. Pretty much His Atonement was performed for INSERT NAME HERE and INSERT PROBLEM HERE. Oh it is wonderful, wonderful to me! I also learned a little bit more about obedience. When we choose what we want to do we will become who we want to be. But when we choose to obey God we are choosing to become what He wants us to be. Even our greatest imagination of what we can become doesn’t even scratch the surface of what God can make out of us. So please be obedient to the commandments and the spirit! I read in PMG that we might not know why we should obey a certain commandment, but that is where our faith will come in. Then we are promised increased protection and many blessings including living with God for eternity! and so many more blessings!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a missionary and am so grateful for every opportunity I get every day! I still get a little smile on my face each time I put on my nametag. What an honor, blessing and privilege to be here. Thank you for supporting me!

I love you! Love, Sister Barnes