Burning Hearts!

Dear Family,

This week has been absolutely incredible!!!  J. is the cutest little old lady! She is all hunched over and has oxygen but is a sweet little angel! We have had some super powerful lessons with her about the spirit, angels, prayers, the temple, and many other things! We are taking it slow with her, but she is really excited to learn! Back when she was happy many years ago she was able to sing really well in the shower (she usually is tone deaf). But since then her life has been extremely difficult and she hasn’t been able to sing. But since we have been coming to teach her she can sing again! Cute little miracle of how the spirit works in people’s lives! 

Our little friend Z. who is part of a part member family is getting baptized Saturday Aug 30th, this week! He just turned 9 a few weeks ago and is ready! 

I went on an exchange with Sister Zealley and we decided to go tracting first thing in the morning. So we went and picked a street in the neighborhood. We knocked a few houses and saw a guy outside. So we went and talked to him. It turned out that he was already one of their investigators; she had forgotten that he lived on that street. He has MS and was getting super tired while trying to clean out the garage, so we helped him! His wife came out and was super happy and excited we could help! She has been pretty turned off until now. Then we helped them move in a new washer and dryer. Sister Zealley was glad I was there because I am significantly bigger and stronger than her or Sister Moon. :) I am also now known as the bug slayer. I killed a spider in my bed, then saw a fly and caught it with the same kleenex out of midair. Then we found a HUGE spider the next morning, like the size of a plum! and killed that too :). Glad I could assist them!

On Sunday we went over to a family’s house for dinner, they invited their non-member friends to come too. These non-member friends have met a lot of missionaries, and have had a lot of dinners with the missionaries. But this time we decided we needed to invite them to church. So at the end of our cute little dinner message, we invited them to come! They said they would!!! Miracle!!!!!! But it got better; Brother Bott (the member) then invited them to take the missionary lessons! They accepted and we have two return appointments for this week! They are not in our area, so we are going to pass them off, but it was still a super cool miracle!!!

Also I learned something amazing from church. I have really been struggling with talking with everyone. It just terrifies me. But I realized at church that that is why the Savior is there. I have been afraid of being imperfect or messing up. But I need to trust in the Saviors atoning sacrifice and be ok with falling short or messing up. As I act in faith he will not only strengthen my efforts, but make things right! Also our companions (people around us) are there to support and help us. They can help us feel the power of Christ’s Atonement by helping us through the hard things in our lives.

This morning we "sacrificed" half of our p-day to have MLC with a member of the 70, Elder Malm. By sacrifice, I really mean HUGE blessing! Holy cow I learned SO MUCH! I haven’t felt the spirit like that in a long time! I feel like a new missionary again. Not that I was lacking motivation or excitement. But I am on fire today! I learned 3 things mostly and I want to share them with you!

First we had a great discussion on how we can help families more! Families are the central unit of the church, gospel, and of heaven! They are very important. Often times we don’t focus enough on teaching the whole family and seeing the vision for the whole family. I just really was reminded on how much I love and am grateful for my amazing family - past, present and future! I know that families are super important and we are going to spend the first part of our weekly planning, planning on how we can help the families in our areas progress! We need to have the vision of seeing whole families dressed in white in the sealing room! That is the goal!

Second, Elder Malm helped us clearly see and feel that the Lord’s work really is hastening. The pre-earth life is where we all came from. We are literally children of God! Because of that we need to see people as our brothers and sisters. He challenged us to- when we go to talk to people and invite them- to view them as "yes sayers. We must think that they will say yes. This way we will not be afraid, we will be filled with love, and they will have a greater inclination to say yes! What a blessing it is to know that every single person on this earth is already a "yes sayer," because we said yes to the Savior to follow His plan and come to earth. We need to help them say yes again.

The third thing he talked about is speaking only positive and thinking only positive things. We need to be honest and not fake, but positive. As we do that we are choosing to follow the Savior. When we are negative we are tearing down, and joining the adversary and his followers. We don’t want to do that! We want to be happy, we want to be on the Lords team, so we are choosing to have positive thoughts and words! I know that this will help our mission so much! People will be happier, more successful, and most importantly missionaries and people we are teaching will come closer to the Savior. I can’t wait to implement all of this! We also have a big zone conference tomorrow! I can’t wait and I will tell you about it next week!!! 

I love you all so much! I, like Elder Malm, invite you to think positively and speak only positively of situations, and people! This way we will be building Christ’s Kingdom and helping people reach the full potential that they can become! I know that the Savior lives, I love the Book of Mormon, and I love being a missionary!!!!

Love, Sister Barnes

Miracle Week!

Dear family,

I ran out of time this week and my computer might time out pretty soon. But thanks for the emails, I got a ton! I also prayed before I emailed today that I could do God’s will. I ended up getting an email from a guy who wants to learn about the church! He wanted to talk on facebook, so I got to send a referral to my dear friend Hermana Kaiser, I hope she gets it!

Ok so on Tuesday we had "the day" aka exchanges! Our sisters did great, thank you for the prayers. Everyone had amazing experiences and we challenged them to pray for miracles. Then we shared!!! So powerful!!!

We got to clean out a nasty hoarders house, it was fun to jump on the dumpster :)

I got to go on another exchange with my dear friend Sister O"Hara aka Black from the MTC, I used to play basketball against her but we are good buddies now! We saw so many miracles! Including chasing a lady down, her catching us running after her, then us having a wonderful, not awkward conversation with her!

We stopped by a less actives house this week. A teenager answered, the son. His friends were all over, but we asked if we could share a message. So we shared a message to 4 teenage boys. All were interested in learning more after and the less active son turned out not to be baptized yet! We are super excited! What a miracle!!!

I am so grateful for the protection we receive from our wonderful neighbors and our Heavenly Father.

My testimony has grown so much stronger this week. I know that having faith in Jesus Christ will get you through and better every trial that comes your way! Also Sister Walker and I are staying together for another transfer. I am super excited!!! I know it is God’s will!!!! I love you! It really was a great week!

Love, Sister Barnes

What a Week!

Jordyn's Baptism Day

Dear family whom I love!

This week started off with exchanges. We made some good contacts and had lunch, and then we headed off into literally the desert to try some less actives. We drove around in their truck for a few hours looking for houses and mostly getting lost. We finally found one house and we went and tried it. There was a gate around the house, so we opened up the gate and walked through. We knocked, and knocked again and heard a few noises inside but nobody answered. All of the sudden two huge dogs angrily came bolting around the corner barking their heads off! They came around the corner but ran right past us. At that point we bolted for the gate and got it shut before they came back. Lessons learned:  people really do stick their dogs on missionaries, Heavenly Father really does protect His missionaries-even from super scary dogs! I am very grateful for your prayers and for the real protection we receive!

Later in the exchange we went and tried a guy that a few weeks ago a member of our ward had an amazing experience with, and invited him to meet/call with the missionaries (he already had their number). So we sent the referral off. They hadn't been able to contact him, until miracles of exchanges! We knocked and he answered! Turns out he is super prepared and his son pulled up right as we were talking. He is interested too! We were able to bear powerful testimony to them! They shared some stories of other side of the veil stuff. The spirit was SO strong!!! It was such a miracle and a blessing! When we told the member he was super excited!!!

Now for Jordyns baptism... God’s power is real, and so is the devils. But God prevailed! Gods team +1, Devils team -1. We showed up to the church an hour early to fill up the font, Jordyn was so excited, she was already there. We went down to the font and found a dead cockroach, a live cricket, and a live SCORPION!!!! We promptly killed them and cleaned the font and began to fill it with water. It came out brown so we let it run and drained it and finally filled it. There were a few other little kinks that we got all worked out! After a super long baptism talk we decided to go check on the font to make sure it was ok. When we got there, the water, which had been full when the program started, had drained down to mid calf! Ahhh! So we began to fill it again, and prayed that it would be done in time. Heavenly Father answered our prayer by having our "5 minute" talk on the HG go for 30 minutes. Right as the musical number was over we turned off the water and opened the curtains and the font was full! YAY! Jordyn was baptized and the next day received the gift of the Holy Ghost! It was so powerful and she is definitely going to be a huge help in building the Lords kingdom! She is the strongest 13 year old I have ever met! (I would say Sarah, but I don't know her as a 13 year old). She is absolutely amazing, and I love her!!!

Here is a quote I loved from church!!! "It is not the happiness that makes us grateful; but the gratefulness that makes us happy. I know that to be true! I am so grateful for the Savior Jesus Christ in my life everyday! I am striving to be better and to love and serve Him more everyday!!! I love being a missionary! Even when times are tough, I am grateful that Heavenly Father cares enough for me to want me to grow and change.

Oh we also gave a training this week on integrity/obedience. We invited all the missionaries to bury their weapons of disobedience (Alma 24 and 53). We literally dug a hole by the church and we each buried our disobedience, it was awesome!!! I also learned that a missionary experience does not mean sharing your testimony (although it can include that) but what a missionary experience is, is INVITING someone to come unto Christ. I invite you to pray for an opportunity to INVITE someone! I love you all!!!!!

Love, Sister Barnes

Sunsets and beautiful Arizona!!

Dear Family, Friends, and everyone else,

First Monday, we went and had an amazing miracle lesson with an investigator named. He is SO golden and prepared! His brother passed away recently and he decided that he needs God in his life. So he has been going to his brother’s old church. When we met him he was about to tell us kindly that he was not interested when the spirit whispered to him that even his brother was open to other religions, so he accepted to meet with us. The member we brought was exactly like him, same story. The spirit was so strong and he accepted a return appointment. He plans on being baptized soon, and now he just needs to decide which church.... I am excited and hopeful on which one will win! I am grateful that the church is true! Oh and he is Italian, pretty cool huh! Then we had dinner at a members house, the dad served his mission in Florence Italy... also pretty cool! I love little tender mercy that Heavenly Father gives us to let us know it will all be ok!

So, the last few weeks Sister Walker and I have been in a bit of a funk. We have still worked hard and had fun, but our motivation has been way down. We have been working as hard as we can do get and stay motivated but nothing seemed to have been working. On Wednesday some trials that I have been struggling with came back into my mind. I was full of fear and doubts. Then we went to district meeting where our district leader showed a video about storms and faith and fear. This was EXACTLY what I needed to come out of this. I realized that what ever storms of life come our way we will be able to overcome if we have faith in Jesus Christ and build our foundation on him. Immediately I felt better, thank goodness for the faith I have in Jesus Christ. If you are struggling with any problem, I invite you to fix your problem with faith in the Savior. I know it will work! He knows exactly how you feel and he will be able to help you get through the storm (Hel 5:12). Also President Passey is awesome! I am so grateful I can turn to him in hard or tempting times.

On Wednesday we had an awesome lesson with our investigators. We focused on the Savior, it was so powerful!!! 

Then I got to go on exchanges with a new missionary! Holy cow, another tender mercy! When we got talking I discovered that she needed some guidance on what missionary life can and should be like. We were able to talk about balance in lessons and how comp study should be. Her prayers and goals were answered because she was able to teach for the first time on her mission. And holy moly, she is super amazing! We found two new investigators because we had studied and practiced the plan of salvation. We went to see another investigator and had planned to teach the PoS, but ended up changing to reading with her in the BoM, but then still didn't feel right. In that moment the crazy 3 year old went nuts and I had to keep him quiet by playing with him, while my comp taught her about D&C 121 and how Heavenly Father answers our prayers. It was exactly what she needed! What a miracle! My comp also saw this cute little house and we decided to go knock on the door. The guy who answered said that his religion encourages them to learn about all faiths and that he wanted us to come back! Then he asked us for a pamphlet, and we kindly gave him one to study!!! So cool!

MLC was this week and it was so amazing!!! We talked about obedience, integrity, and how to work with members. President and Sister Passey trained on prophets and repentance. Earlier that morning I had studied Helaman 5 which went perfectly with it! I was so happy! I learned so much and it is already helping our work progress, we are excited to teach it to the rest of the zone!

Our 13-year-old investigator is getting baptized this Saturday at 7pm! She is so ready and excited! It has been an honor and privilege teaching her!

This week we were able to invite two less active families to prepare to go back to the temple (part of our rescue plan in ward council). They both accepted, so we will be teaching them the lessons and helping them progress, I am so excited!!!

On Sunday while taking the sacrament. I pictured the Savior handing me the sacrament. It was so meaningful to think, "What would the Savior say to me as I am taking the sacrament. I hope you can all make every week as you take the sacrament just as sacred as you would when you get baptized or when you go through the temple! Because as we take the sacrament we are renewing the covenants we have made!

Last week...

We went on two exchanges! I learned to follow the spirit and how many miracles can come from just trying! And to testify when contacting people, before inviting...aka testivite! It makes a huge difference! We had some amazing experiences with giving away Book of Mormons, and I rode a beach cruiser, it was super hot this week, but really great! We had an amazing ward council, I love the Countryside Ward and the leaders we have! I will tell you the miracles when I get home.... sorry!

I wish I could share more, but I am out of time. I love you all very much! I know the Savior lives and loves us. He loves and knows me and my struggles and triumphs. He knows and is aware of you and your prayers and your deepest desires. Make them align to Gods and you will find happiness! I love being a missionary, so much!!! Sister Walker is such a great example of being obedient, faithful, and full of light, even when things are really hard. A summary of her is "cheerfully diligent". I hope you all choose to make your week a missionary week! I know Heavenly Father will answer your prayers!

Love, Sister Barnes