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| Awkward district.. On Wednesdays we wear pink!! (I love my district we are all hilarious) |
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| We got our flu shots! |
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| Nightmare on...... |
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| Our guitar friend! |
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| From our hike! |
Hi family and friends!
This week was great but it's been full of
highs and lows. Mostly highs though!! I'll start with the bad news... M.
decided he doesn't want to meet with us anymore. He expressed appreciation for
our "nursing back to spiritual health" but he said he has been helped
enough and now just wants to go back to being a baptist. We were really sad,
but we know he will come around eventually. Whether it's here or in the spirit
world. A member that has been an awesome fellowshipper for him has suggested
that we call him in a month or so to see if he is still spiritually
progressing. If he's not, we will help him recognize the influence the church
has on his life. It's always sad losing someone solid, but it's okay. God
opened a lot of doors...
So I guess I've never really tried fasting
super whole heartedly, so I decided to try it out to see the results. One of
the things I fasted for was to be able to find people who are prepared to
receive the restored gospel and be willing and ready to make and keep
commitments. We started our fast after lunch for convenience purposes and got
to work. We went to Chauncey, a small town about 2 miles from our apartments.
We drive through it pretty often, but we haven't ever stopped in to meet
anyone. From what we could see, it was a ghetto little place that is just run
down and full of hicks. During our weekly planning the week before, we were
praying to see who we could ask for referrals. We thought of a fairly recent
convert and decided to go see him. He was the reason we decided to go to
Chauncey in the first place. As soon as we parked, we talked to a couple who
was interested in learning more. We instantly found that Chauncey is actually
super cute and full of fun happy families :):):). When we visited the recent convert, he
gave us a few referrals and even introduced us to one of them. Almost each of
these people we were able to teach were touched by the spirit and invited us
back to teach more. We followed our plans and went to tract on a random street
in Chauncey. There is a family there who is also so prepared for the gospel.
We're excited! The last thing in Chauncey was following up with a former
investigator. This guy had moved, but his brother was here. His brother wasn't
particularly interested, but he gave us a few referrals around him to contact!
We talked with them and both the super cool old guy and the cute young family
were excited to hear about the gospel and set up a return appointment to hear
more. We have six return appointments in Chauncey for next
Saturday, we are so excited! Every person we taught a
quick lesson to was willing to let us come back to share more, So thankful God
responded to our fast and blessed us immediately. I'm excited to see how all of
the return appointments go next week!
W. (the guy that watched general conference) is still awesome!! So this week I
was looking through the notes mom took during my setting apart and saw some
cool things I wanted to more fully activate. One of these things was to not
hesitate to call down blessings from heaven. I had that in mind and went on
through the day... We had a lesson with W. later that night that was so
powerful. We taught him about God and His nature. He was mind blown that there
was a being that loved HIM so much. We talked about prayer, which he had never
heard of, and he was able to say a prayer with us. The spirit was so strong and
he was stoked about a God and the church. After the lesson, Sister Blaser
complimented something that I said to him. I guess there was a super specific
promise I gave him regarding his schooling and success as he continues to put
forth effort to learn about God and the gospel. I don't remember saying this or
anything like it. I know God was using me as a mouthpiece to promise blessings
to him! Since then, I've been making an effort to promise specific and
sincere blessings to people and it's been really cool. W. came to church
yesterday and is planning to go to institute on campus this week! Yay! We will
also have probably two lessons with him this week.
We got to be on campus for a few hours on Tuesday! We met a
bunch of cool people that still haven't texted us back... Haha campus
missionary life. But we did meet this cool guy who loves music. His fave song
to play is hallelujah so we asked him to play it for us. So he did! It was
awesome and we had a cool conversation about God and talents. We also are
starting to see some people we already know on campus. It's a test to try to
remember their names without them realizing you forgot it haha.. But it's been
fun. One dude is in a photo class and every time he sees us he asks
to take pics of us to use for his class. Who knows what he does with them, but
we make sure he can see our name tags so he kinda spreads the gospel that way.
We're not sure how interested he is, but we are praying to find him again to
share more about what we do and hopefully get him baptized and stuff ;).
That's about it for highlights on
investigators this week. Now on to more happenings! Tuesday we had
interviews with President Daines! Him and Sister Daines came to our apartments
and we had the interviews in our extra room. It was kinda funny cause I was
just in socks and we were in the apartment, but it was such a cool experience.
President Daines is so inspired and knows exactly how to help me and the people
in Athens!
Wednesday we walked
with a man to family history night. He doesn't have a car and didn't come
last time, so we decided to walk with him. He hasn't been to church in probably
centuries (hahah) and he says this is as close as he's getting to the church
for now. But he went to family history and love love loved it. He says he will
come every week!! He's opening back up to the gospel :)
There's a lady in our ward who has pneumonia
(actually we know like 6 people who have pneumonia in The Plains, what's up
with that?!). We offered to help out with anything and she asked us to mow her
lawn. Hahahahahahahahaha we did it Friday night in the dark
(literally the only time we had time). We had to use a flashlight. Now the
funniest part... Her house is on a HILL. Like maybe even a cliff. Jk not that
bad but it was seriously insanely steep. Her and her husband (he's in a wheelchair
so he can't do it either) just sat on their porch and laughed the whole time.
We put on quite the show!! For people who have been to Nauvoo, it was even
steeper than the pageant stage. Lol image shoving an old old huge lawn mower
across and up this massive hill.. Haha fun times.
We just went hiking for pday! Haha
"hiking". There's a pretty trail called the ridges that goes to radar
hill. We've heard tons about how cool and kinda tough it is. We got up to the
top in 15 mins... But it was super pretty up top! Pictures will be included. I
miss mountains, but this is as close as I will get for 18 months.. So I'll take
it!!
Well, it's definitely fall in Ohio! leaves
keep changing and it's getting colder. I already had to whip out my tights lol.
Our apartment has been freezing and we checked the thermostat and it was 63
degrees! COLD. we had to turn on the heat today :'(. Humid cold is going to
kill me. But apparently there's not much, if any, snow until like January. Then
there's only ever like 2 inches around. So that's a relief. But it'll just be
cold :(. We usually run in the mornings, and the last few days I've been able
to see my breath. Pray I
don't turn into a Popsicle soon.
Love you all!!
Sister Barnes
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