Dear Family,
This week went
pretty good! I am so grateful that Jesus Christ can drink our bitter cups and
make them sweet. He definitely did that for me this week. So I can say that my
week ended up being amazing, including the bumps in the road!
On Monday I was
having just a down day, nothing to panic about. Hope that is not a news flash
to the world. Yes I, Sister Barnes do get sad sometimes and am not always the
most motivated. But I am always trying to be better! So Heavenly Father
sent me some tender mercies. Right after emailing I looked to my right and saw
a cute little old lady that I had seen last week. I was a little scared,
but decided to ask if she was into family history. And she was! She proceeded
to show me her pictures and I was able to talk to her about family search and
the family history center and we are now friends. I just saw her and
she gave a big old friendly wave to me today! I felt like my mom, being an
awesome missionary through family history! Keep it up mom! I ran into an old
friend from the tute! He gave us a referral for his sister, that will
come into play later :), and we were able to talk to a whole bunch of cops who
we saw after we went caving, they were really nice and BYU fans! I love talking
with everyone!
We had several
investigators move :(, which provides room for all of the amazing potential
people we have now!!!
Here is an update
on our gators
S. moved her
baptism date up this week, miracle!!! Her date is for August 16th; please pray
for her and for that day!!!! Then we had a super great lesson with her. On
exchanges Sister Frazier and me came up with a sweet analogy about houses. Here
it is.. Say you are renting a house and it is a fixer upper. You go in and
clean it all up. You can make it nicer and fix it, but only to a certain point.
But when you buy a house you sign a contract and you are able to remodel and clean,
and tear out any and all of the gross stuff. Cleaning it up is like repentance,
it can happen in both houses. But full repentance can only come when you sign
the contract. In this case the contract is with Heavenly Father and is called
baptism. Also when you sign this contract your cosigner is the Savior. He can
help make up for any of the payments you cannot fully pay (which is none of
them). He can help you completely remodel and change your house to make it the
best it possibly can be. This is why we need to be baptized with the priesthood
authority. We cannot fully repent until we do.... So we shared this with her
and she finally understood the priesthood, which is good. Then we boldly
testified that this is the only Church on the earth that has the priesthood.
She got offended because she still think that Catholics priests have the
priesthood. We were able to calm her down and help her remember the times she
has felt the spirit. I am very happy that this happened because now she has
something to look for and search for. As she studies this I know that the
spirit will witness to her what is true! I can’t wait to help her on that journey!!!
She is also an awesome missionary and helped her friend meet the missionaries
and her friend now has a baptism date down in south Tucson!
Our ward
missionaries daughter is doing great! She is such a sweety, and is a lot like
Sarah the cutest 13 year old ever! Well, maybe they tie! She showed us this
sweet thing to do with soap. Take Ivory bar soap
(it has to be Ivory soap) and put it in microwave for 2 and a half minutes. It
will expand because of the air bubbles inside. It looks so cool and doesn't
ruin you microwave, only cleans it! We did this for an object lesson in a
training we did in zone meeting.
We did two
trainings during the last zone meeting. We trained on respect. We looked up
different places in the white handbook that talk about respect.... a ton! And
we focused on respectful language, like calling people their proper titles
Elder and Sister, and not gossiping, things like that, our mission has some
issues with this, but we are getting better! We also had a sweet training on
charity! We had missionaries share times when they have felt the pure love of
the Savior for people they teach. The spirit was SO STRONG! It was awesome!
Then we talked about how charity is a gift and what we need to do to inherited
this gift from Christ! Moroni 7 is good. Then we did the soap thing and showed
how charity will grow, it was awesome and everybody loved it!
Here are a few
miracles.....
We got out of our
car to try some part member families. And a lady inside a gated house was
staring at us. We said hi and she yelled " who are you" we told her
we were missionaries and she started babbling. Her gate and garage was locked
so we couldn't come in, but we asked her for her number and she said she would
go get it. She came out like 10 minutes later with her niece who had just
popped out of the shower. Turns out the grandma has dementia
but the niece wants to learn more! Got to love crazy grandmas who are inspired!
So cool!!!
Early this week we
talked to a guy sitting on a bench in front of his house. Later that
week we were looking for a part member family, and it turned out to be his
house. His wife is a member!!! He wanted us to try back this week and teach
him!!!
We went and tried his sister and her husband answered. He just had his brother pass away. And because
of that he decided to go back to church, and he wants to be baptized. He also
said that his brother was very open to all religions, so he is open to hearing
our message. We will meet with him on Thursday!!! I am so happy about this one,
because I feel like I have a personal connection. He is so amazing!!!!
I am so grateful for
Sister Walker; she is such a great example to me!!! She has taught me and will continue to teach me so
much! And we are great buds! Ahh, I am out of
time, but so many great miracles! Just remember that Jesus Christ is the Savior
and redeemer of the world, and of YOU! He knows you and me and He loves each of
us personally. He knows exactly where we are and exactly where we can be. If we
trust in Him He will not lead us astray. His path will not be easy and it may
seem like he is leading us down a scary and strange road. But if we hold
steadfastly to His teachings and His Atoning sacrifice we will make it through.
I love Him so much; He is becoming an even better friend to me each and
everyday!
#becauseofHim
-still love that video!
I love you all!!!
Love, Sister Barnes
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