Rain, Fire, Bikes, Sun

Exchanges with the Lewis Center sisters

Exchanges with Sis Hansen

Whit's ... the greatest frozen custard place on earth!

At the zoo...

Hello Everyone!

This week has been so crazy. So many ups and downs at the same time..haha I don't even know how that works but that's how it was! We've been trying to be so so so obedient and we've been seeing so many
blessings.

One of these blessings came in the form of a referral! The assistants met C. on a Friday as he was doing some landscaping and set up a time to go back on Saturday. Luckily for us, he's living in our area! We were able to meet him on his porch and hear some of his story. The Lord has been preparing him for about 10 years. He told us about a lot of mistakes he's made and how he wants the guilt to be taken away. He told us about his search for truth and his inability to find it. He told us about his and his sons questions about where they were before earth, why they're here, and where they're going. He quit drinking and using lots of drugs to feel more at peace. He's started treating people right and doing lots of service. It was hard not to spew every lesson at once because he's so ready for everything. We asked if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes. We set up a time to meet with him, his fiancé, and his 16 year old son. Super pumped to teach them.

I absolutely loved Women's Conference. One of the things that the spirit taught me was that I need to have more charity. I need to think of what Christ would do in a situation and so just that. Sunday morning after the fireside I read Moroni 7. It was the perfect chapter to solidify the prompting I received to have more charity. This will help me be more selfless and in turn be more humble. I'm grateful for revelation given through prophets and to us personally!

Sunday was crazy. We had dinner with a member and the 2 year old son dumped an entire glass of water on me. We all just laughed it off. We were later walking to a house in the rain. A car pulled up and offered us a ride. We said no, we're good. Then I was like "wait! Can we give you a card!" And everybody laughed and Sister Hansen let me know they were members. Haha so embarrassing. I guess that's what happens when you're in a big ward and relatively new to the area. At least they know I'm doing missionary work! We also realized we forgot to get gas before it was Sunday. The meter that tells us how many miles we had left must not have been working super well before. We pulled up to a street and it zeroed out. We couldn't drive anywhere else! Thankfully we were just down the street from some members who would be the ones in the ward who would be the ones with a spare gas can to get us home. They did and we were able to drive home! But it was only 7 so we still had some time. We got on our bikes and hit the streets! We had a phone
call to make so we stopped at a bench and called from there. The sisters we called were having tornado warnings like crazy but we talked anyway haha. We rode some more. It was raining a little bit which made it fun. ...until Sister Hansen hit a pot hole and slammed her brakes and fell off her bike. Thankfully again, someone came to the rescue. A kind old man who just got his Wendy's came and helped her get her bike out of the way. We were able to get the bike fixed enough to walk it home. We gave him a card and said it was the best thing we could give to repay him. He didn't seem interested but you never know. Haha, made for a crazy evening.

We also had a lot of fires this week. 🔥Haha I'll tell about a few of them. On Wednesday we were talking about a lot of our fears and decided we were basically afraid of everything. We didn't want it to get us down. We got some napkins during our bathroom stop at mcdonalds. We wrote all of our fears down on these napkins throughout the day. When we got home, we got a huge old deep frying pan. We didn't have wood so we dug some cardboard out of our garbage. We layed out some cardboard and got a bucket of water in case it got out of control (fire safety, kids). We went to our back balcony and had a fear burning ceremony. It was super relieving and we can now say we're fearless!! So it's been my dream to have a lesson around a fire with someone. M. texted us one night and told us that she was having a fire and invited us over. We went and had a nice lesson around the fire. It was a dream come true!

Okay also we had 2 exchanges again this week!

Tuesday I got to be with Sister Duckworth, who's serving in Lewis Center. Shes been out for about a year! She's awesome! We had lots of fun. Funny story. We had a few minutes before a lesson so we knocked on a potential's door. He didn't have any info so we didn't know what to expect. We had a super awesome spiritual conversation, the guy was almost in tears. We said a prayer and we're about to leave when he said "bring it in for a hug" and before we could bolt out of the way he stepped so quick and gave us both a hug. We both just stood there and it was super awkward and basically ran away after. Probably the scariest thing that's ever happened to me lol. Then we had a lesson with M. and she gave us lemon alive! We had a lot of fun. Between people we visited Sister Duckworth asked a lot about BYU and my experiences with going there. She opened up her iPad and saw an email from President about going home a transfer early for college. The spirit was super strong and she got pretty emotional and explained that this was an answer to her prayers. At the end of the day she said she learned that God really does have control of everything. It was a tender mercy for us to be together on exchanges, be talking about BYU, and get the email about college. God's aware!

Thursday I was with Sister Kaylee Hansen! Haha, easy to remember her name. We came out at the same time! It was fun to remember MTC days and stuff. Sadly we didn't know each other then. We did a lot of finding and talked to everyone, even a guy who was walking past our parked car. Haha I unrolled sister Hansen's window and told her to give him a card. It was fun. Mom sent me a care package which included a new cd and a bag of pretzel m&ms. We had fun with the music and ate the whole bag. Haha good times. We met some awesome people who we're seeing this week! She's awesome.

People we're working with:

J&M: the Marysville plague hit them hard. M's been having pneumonia symptoms and we haven't been able to see them. We stopped by one day to check in and he said he's been reading a lot from the BoM, D&C and Pearl of Great Price. He seems to be loving it all.

D.: a while ago he stopped keeping commitments. Now he won't even make them.. he's never there times we set up to see him and we can never teach him when we stop by. He told us not to get him a ride for church unless he asks for one. We aren't sure what's up but we feel like we need to back off for now. The ward is still going to be reaching out and trying to help him.

M.: Sister Hansen had a chapel tour with her on Tuesday on exchanges. I saw her on Thursday! We aren't sure how much she's comprehending, but she seems to always feel the spirit and keep the commitments we leave with her. She got hit by the plague and wasn't able to come to church either.
 
A.: I met her on exchanges! She moved into a house where other people who missionaries had met used to live. She opened the door and we complimented her OSU shirt. She said "thanks! Do you want to come in?" We said YEAH and went in. She said "sorry I don't have anywhere to sit, my boyfriend has his golf set up taking over the living room." We walk in and their entire front room is set up for golf. There was a net thing hanging from the ceiling and a square of grass with the T and everything. Haha it was awesome. She's super cool and we get to see her, her boyfriend (don't worry we'll teach them about Chastity soon and get them married), and their 2 year old son on Wednesday!!

M.: she's doing so great! Sometimes I forget she's a recent convert because she's just awesome. She got a calling this week! She's a ward missionary. Perfect! Had some awesome lessons this week and got to watch some of the women's session with her. We also just ran into her at the store and got to chat for a few mins.

Sister B.: she had an incredible week until the latter end... On Thursday she went to Book of Mormon class and loved it. Friday she had dinner with the Elders and it was apparently super great. Saturday morning she texted us and told us she chose to go back to her church and wanted to completely remove her records from ours. We hurried over to see what was up. The pastor of her old church came and sat down with her and showed her some anti stuff and really confused her. We talked a lot about faith and how we have to feel things before we know them. We read in Alma 32 together. She said she is going to keep praying about it, but being between 2 churches is really tearing her apart. We hope to keep reaching out. She watched Women's Conference and we are waiting to hear back about how it went. The whole conference was perfect so we hope and pray she watched it like she said she would. Pray for her!

We met some awesome people last week that I'm excited to see again this week! Hopefully there will be more to report then. I'm looking forward to MLC, Zone Training meeting, interviews and general Conference this week! It's going to be a spiritual overload and I'm pumped. Also transfer week is next week (I know, ALREADY) so I won't be emailing until next Wednesday.. with transfer news! Who knows what will happen, it could be anything!!

Last night when we were laying in bed I realized something. I had been to some animal thing with each companion and this was potentially the last normal pday with Sister Hansen. (Sister Blaser and I went to The Wilds and both Sister Bohner and Sister Flora went to the zoo with me.) This morning we texted a member who had a zoo pass and offered to take us sometime. Luckily it's spring break here so we got to go with her and her 5 kids! It was a blast. The Cottles are awesome.

I know the gospel is true. I know Christ died for me and lives today. I'm thankful for God being so aware of each of us and our unique circumstances. I know he places people in our paths to help us when we're in the need! I'm so thankful for my family and friends from home and my mission that I can lean on for support and experience lots of joy together! I love Christ's teachings and I'm so thankful I get to be his mouthpiece in Marysville!

Love you all!

Sister Barnes

Dead mice, creepy towns, vicious dogs

Mission picture with Elder Stevenson

The pie that will make me gain 100 pounds

Exchanges with Sis Anderson

Cool wall in Richwood

Hello everyone!
 
This week was great! It was super super busy and lots of cool things happened.

We had 2 lessons with J&M this week and went more in depth with the plan of salvation. It answered a lot of questions they had and they agreed with it. They're awesome. He had to work all day on Sunday, but she was able to come to church! She loved it, as usual. We are going to get them on date this week! They're so prepared it's amazing. We gave her a necklace and she wore it to church.

K. is the less active convert we've been doing service for. We called him one night to check in and we invited him to church as usual. He actually said yes this time though! Apparently this is the most willing he's been since his confirmation. We talked him through how he would get there, what he would wear, etc. We called a few times to remind him and confirm that he's coming. Everything was set!..until he didn't come to church. He said he wasn't able to sleep at all and woke up not feeling good. We were bummed, but we will keep trying! We did service for him on exchanges on Tuesday. He's kinda a hoarder so we helped clean up. I discovered a few garbage cans in his fireplace to catch dripping water. One was full of water. One had 2 recently dead mice. Another had 2 decaying mice. I felt light headed and almost screamed and passed out. Haha life is tough as a missionary. We found this cool jewelry box and he let me have a cool ring that was in it. Thanks!

This week Sister Hansen and I made a companionship goal to be uncompromisingly obedient. It's been cool to see the blessings that come. This will show how serious we were about this. We were at a family's house for dinner. They have a long driveway out in the country. Their next door neighbor has 2 vicious dogs that aren't tied up. The family says they're dangerous dogs. As we were leaving dinner, I was about to back Sister Hansen when they started running toward us. I jumped in the car really quick and we tried to decide what to do. Sister Hansen said we could do an "emergency back" without me having to back her. I said "NO! I'm going to be uncompromisingly obedient!" And I got out of the car and backed her quickly. I left the door open so I could dive in if I needed to. Thankfully, Heavenly Father blessed us for being obedient and the dogs backed off.
 
A less active asked us to come visit her too! Last week we had an awesome discussion and she decided she needs to come back to church. We went bowling with her and a new convert last pday, she had us over for dinner with her and her non member husband, and she came to church! It was great and she felt like she belonged. We made this card game to play with one of our investigator families. It's plan of salvation Uno. We got some old pass a long cards and taped paper to the backs of all of them. We colored them a few colors and wrote "pre earth life, earth life, spirit world, resurrection and judgement, and kingdoms of glory." Basically the same rules as uno apply. Instead of numbers you have to put the things in order. So you can put down either the same color or the next thing in sequence. We played it as part of the dinner message and got the nonmember husband to play too. It was super fun. We were able to discuss the different parts of the plan. He wasn't sure about the pre earth life until his wife pulled out Jeremiah 1:5 and asked him what he thinks it could mean. Let's just say he's going to ask his pastor about it :).

The family that we initially made the game for had a chapel tour set up but two of them got sick! Our member was able to pick up one of them and we still had an awesome time. A fairly recent convert was able to be there and be friends with him. Sadly C. caught whatever his mom and sister had and wasn't able to be at church this week. He'll be there next week and wants to go to mutual this week! They're awesome, we love them! Praying they get feeling better and are less busy so we can meet with them more often.

The fairly recent convert, told us that he feels like we're the sisters who could make progress on teaching his mom. He told us this last Sunday and we were waiting to see if she was willing all week. Finally he called us yesterday and said his mom's heart was softened enough to let us begin with one lesson. She's a truck driver and used to be a prison guard and is pretty intense. She refused to let him get baptized for a really long time. The lesson is in 2 Saturdays and we're pretty excited and nervous. We're praying and praying and will be fasting to know how to best help her.

M. is doing awesome! We played the plan of salvation Uno game with her too. She loves the gospel and is very involved in reactivating and fellowshipping some sisters. We love teaching the new member lessons and getting more members involved with that.

Exchanges were super fun! On Tuesday we had the Powell Sisters here... I got to be with my baby Sister Flora again!! It was so fun to be back together. Haha she said it felt like her training was a dream and we were just invading someone else's area. It was grand. We did lots of service and had fun. Thursday we had the Mansfield Sisters here. I was with Sister Anderson! She came out the same time as Sister Flora and is training now too. She's awesome! There were tons of people out everywhere we went. Of course we talked to everyone! Haha so many awkward situations I don't even remember a specific one. Oh wait. So I prayed that we'd be able to embrace the awkward more. Right when we say amen, a guy pulls into the driveway by the house we're parked in front of. He gets out and we hurry out to talk. It was pretty awkward but he was interested so it was cool. Fun things, I love exchanges!

Holidays. So T., another fairly recently convert, offered to get us a pie for pi day. He got us one from Der Dutchman, a super yummy Amish place. We ate it all week long and it was the greatest pie ever. I also made some apple pies and they were pretty good. St Patrick's day was fun. I wore a green dress and ate lots of green food. Green eggs and milk for breakfast, mint brownies. Also for dinner a few times this week, members fed us corned beef and cabbage. Yay!

Saturday was crazy. Sis Hansen woke up feeling awful so I made some yummy rolls. I'm a chef now btw. We went to this cute sounding town called Magnetic Springs. We were expecting something like radiator springs. Haha nope. It was creeeeepy. We walked around and everything was quiet. We asked this dude if there was a spring or something close by (trying to figure out the name of the town.) He said no, but we could buy a bottle of water for $1 at this one place. So we thought it would be like super cool water that's specially made in magnetic springs. Nope. It was Walmart brand water. The lady working there said magnetic springs used to be a tourist attraction where movie stars and people would come to the bath houses there. They had magic healing water or something weird. Haha idk, but it's definitely not nice anymore. We got weird vibes so we left.

I love being a missionary! Even though sometimes you literally have to run between teaching visits, have companion study during lunch, and do companionship inventory between houses you visit, I love it! I love being able to serve people and bring them closer to Christ.

I'm excited for another busy week! We have exchanges with the Lewis Center Sisters and the Delaware Sisters. It's going to be a blast!!

Love you all!

President Daines is the best and the Sisters are perfect!

 

The sky is a tangerine!

Exchanges

 

 

Found myself in a member's scrapbook ... Nauvoo family cast 2007!

 Hey everyone!

We just got back from bowling and milkshakes with a less active and a recent convert. It was super fun..

This week was incredible. Monday our car broke. Tuesday was zone conference. Wednesday we watched The Testaments with M. Thursday was exchanges. Friday was weekly planning. Saturday Elder Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve came. Sunday was church and meetings. Today was bowling day!

Monday. We got to pull out of our apartment and all the dash board lights start going nuts. We take it into the shop. End up having to cancel our lesson and wait :(. 

Tuesday. Zone conference was so awesome. An Amish family that converted, was able to come and share their conversion. It was super intense. They still live in the community but their kids got kicked out of school, their businesses shut down, and their extended family doesn't talk to them. It's sad, but cool to see how WORTH IT the gospel is. 

Wednesday. We went to M's and watched The Testaments with her. Haha it was so weird to watch a loooong movie (only like an hour lol). So good though, has a lot more meaning now that I'm beginning to understand the Book of Mormon. We also had a lesson with V. and O. He got a Book of Mormon in 1979 and has basically been coming to church since. They don't really want to get baptized because they were baptized in the river Jordan, where Christ was baptized. Pretty cool excuse but not good enough. We read in D&C 22 where it says they could get baptized 100 times and it wouldn't matter if they didn't do it with the priesthood. We had a member come who was the friend that gave the BoM. He was super bold with them and it was awesome. They'll get baptized soon I'm sure. 

Thursday. Exchanges with Sister Lang! She's from the Martial Islands and goes home in a few weeks! We finally got to see T, C, and C and taught the plan of salvation. We used visuals which helped a lot! They accepted it all and we had a great conversation about the importance of baptism. They're on date for April 22nd. They're having a lot of weird family situations so they haven't been able to come to church. They really want to and we will help them get there this week! The rest of the day we had a ton of fun meeting some strange people. We went to this small run down town in our area and met a lot of people interested in the gospel. Yay! 

Friday. A less active member (the one we went bowling with today) had us over to talk about some of her concerns. It was a super spiritual lesson! I kept having random things pop into my head that I was able to share. It was cool to see the spirit REALLY direct that and help her commit to start coming back to church! We also saw another investigator. We figured out his biggest concern this week. He may not even believe in God, ahhhh! It would make a lot of sense that he's having a hard time living the word of wisdom if he doesn't even believe in the One who gave the commandment. We're going back to the basics with him.

Saturday. This day was the best. We got up early and drove to the meeting. The whole mission lined up in the gym on all sorts of chairs/risers to be able to take a picture. It was cool. 201 missionaries silently waiting for Elder Stevenson of the Twelve and Elder Bennett of the Seventy to walk in. It was so so cool. He walked in and the spirit followed. Snapped a few pics and we all got to shake their hands. Elder Stevenson read my name tag and said "Sister Barnes, how are you?" His hands were super soft haha. Elder Bennett talked about being on the right path in our lives and how to know that we're there. He was talking a tiny bit about obedience and said something to the elders. Then he turned to the sisters and said don't worry, "the sisters are perfect" HA! Said from a general authority. Get this. Another cool thing he said was that President and Sister Daines are the best mission president and wife on the earth. Ha! All those "my mission president is best" arguments can be settled with this!! I definitely agree. He also talked about how missionary work should be fun. The way to do this is by taking out the "fun" things, which are usually disobedient or time wasting, and replacing it with work. Yay!  Elder Stevenson talked a lot about some awesome things. He agreed about pres and sister Daines and told us that they will always be our role models. He talked about every point of our missions being the "sweet spot". He talked about being exactly where we need to be, when we need to be there. And the amount of inspiration it took to get there.. from submitting papers, getting assigned to Columbus, being in our specific areas with our specific companions, going to different places in the areas at different times. Then the other side! The inspiration it took for people to get to where they are when we meet them. Super cool. He told us about Cornelius in Acts 10. Challenged us to read it and find our Cornelius, or someone that we were sent here for. I was reminded of my setting apart where it talks about recognizing people that I was sent here for. I'm on a journey to find my Cornelius . He gave some awesome trainings about following the spirit and promising blessings in our teaching. The most spiritual part for me was the end when he gave us an apostolic blessing. He said it was as if his hands were on each of our heads. I wrote a lot down and I know mom will want to hear this so I'm just going to type it all. He blessed us with things that are needful for us right now. He blessed us to know, feel, and understand that the Lord has called us to be here. And I'll be blessed here and at home for my service. He blessed me and my family with health and strength. Especially spiritual strength which will give me the power and capacity to endure and enjoy my journey. He blessed us that we would be able to feel this. To be able to feel that strength and the blessings promised. Blessed us with utterance to say and answer as the Lord would. And that I will be blessed beyond measure. Blessed with a testimony, answers to questions, and any doubts washed away as you study and pray. He blessed us with his testimony! It was so powerful. On his way out he said "work, work, work." Everyone just stood there for a few minutes and didn't want to break the silent spirit.       That night was incredible also. So J. and M. are legit. We finally got in for another lesson. We taught the first half of the plan of salvation and it was the greatest lesson ever. When we mentioned the pre earth life, J. pulled out references from the Bible to back it up. They love it and already believe it! When we taught about Adam and Eve we used 2 Nephi 2. They said they had never thought about it that way but it made more sense and felt good. They have been to church 3 weeks in a row and actively participate in the classes. They're golden! We plan to put them on date this week as we finish the plan of salvation lesson. Pure GOLD. 

Sunday was tough. Haha not really but losing a precious hour of sleep as a missionary was the worst. And we had to be at the church at 7:40 for ward council. Ha life is tough. J, M, D, and V were there! It was great. We had a just serve meeting that the STLs and ZLs in each stake are supposed to go to. It was cool to see the efforts to make it more of a focus in wards. We went to dinner with the Ellington family. After some Nauvoo talk we found out we were in the same cast in 2007! Yellow cast! I was looking through their photo album from it and found a picture of me and a few more with my family in it. Haha small world. They had a young man over (he's a recent convert waiting on a mission call). He told us he feels like we are the missionaries that should teach his mom. This is super exciting because she's pretty against the church! Hopefully we get to see her this week. We did lots of following the spirit and helping people out. Another recent convert, wasn't at church and lots of people were worried about him. We felt like we should go to his apartment at like 8:30 at night. It's in a sketchy neighborhood so we knew it definitely wasn't our own thoughts. He got there a few mins behind us and we had a great conversation. He's having a tough time with stuff but God's hand was there to have us there at the same time. 

Outlook for next week: exchanges with Powell sisters on Tuesday :), district meeting and 1000000 lessons on Wednesday, exchanges with the Mansfield sisters on Thursday, weekly planning Friday, small little town all afternoon on Saturday, and helping in primary on Sunday! 

I'm excited for the week and the blessings to come! On the lookout for my Cornelius

Lots of love, Sister Barnes

A Fish Story!

This is funny! Sis Hansen wrote this story about one of our experiences...

So once upon a time we helped a member clean her fish tank. It was an adventure.
Then we cleaned her beta fish tank. She dropped him on the ground and
he almost died. He kept sinking to the bottom of the tank and we
thought death was nigh.
After much tears shed from the member, he survived. He came back alive.
About a week later we cleaned his tank again. We didn't drop him. As a
reward she let us name him.
His name is Lazarus.

Busy Busy Fun Week

We matched one day just for fun!

Some MLC friends

Hey everyone! 

It was another fun week. So much happened!

Tuesday we had MLC (mission leadership council). All the ZLs and STLs in the mission go! We talked about mission needs and did a lot of other cool things. It was at the mission home so I got to go back to Powell for a bit :). There was a cool experience I'll share. We were discussing a mission wide goal for church attendance this month. We prayed and President said he had an idea of what it should be but he wanted the spirit to confirm it through someone else. Some ideas were discussed and he called on Sister Deighton to share her thoughts. She said 500! He smiled and confirmed that 500 was the number he chose too. It was a super spiritual experience and we all knelt together again and thanked Heavenly Father. It was fun to see lots of my friends! Sister Blaser was there too :)

Wednesday we had zone training meeting. Us and the ZLs in the zone planned a training on a few different things. I was kinda nervous but it turned out okay. I got to see Sister Flora and her new companion and lots of my old district. It was fun. So, we are working with this family who just moved to the area. We asked if there was a thing we could do to help. They said they did need some more hangers. We told them it was no problem and we had tons of extras in our apartment. When we got home we realized we threw away almost all of our extras while we were cleaning out. We kinda panicked but knew the Lord would provide. We planned on asking a member who we had dinner with. After dinner she said, "this is super random, I don't even know if you'd want them, but I have some extra hangers that I don't need." We almost cried as we explained how big of a miracle that was. She said for some reason she thought to offer them to us, which looking back she realized was the spirit! Super cool experience and the family was super thankful. Thanks Heavenly Father! He's so aware of us and our needs. We also got to see M. that night! She's doing awesome as always. We gave her a LDS KJV of the Bible so she could have the footnotes that reference BoM scriptures. She's been reading that and going to all the scriptures. She still is reading from the BoM! We felt like we should study PMG with her and she loves it. She's just the coolest person alive. I love her! We see her almost every other day. Usually more often :)

Thursday we had exchanges! All of the sisters in our zone and another zone will come here to Marysville for an exchange once a transfer. The Dublin sisters were here and I got to go with Sister Mock! She's super cool. We had tons of fun and laughed a lot. We saw lots of miracles from making the most out of awkward situations and talking to everyone! Met a cool lady from the Philippines and she let us in her house. Yay! We got  to go to a non denominational bible study class that one of our investigators facilitates. She was super excited to see us there. It was weird and hard not to reference everyone to the Book of Mormon and convert them all haha. I also got to drive the Dublin sisters car, a 2017 Chevy Malibu! Super nice and I felt rich!

Friday was weekly planning. Weekly planning is always awesome but it takes forreeevvveerrr. Haha a little exhausted from the week so I was a little grumpy, sorry Sis Hansen

Saturday we got an oil change. He said it would take 1.5 hrs tops but it took FOUR HOURS. We updated everything, called a billion people, got members for every set lesson, and cleaned out a ton of people in our area book. We were going crazy so we went to Waffle House. It was a long morning haha. But we ended up having an awesome evening!! There was a less active guy and his family that previous sisters were working with a little bit. They got super busy and said to wait until after holidays. They hadn't been able to contact them since. We stop by and there is music blaring out of this house. We knock anyway and this HUGE Tongan guy opens the door. He lets us right in and we see that his 5 yr old daughter and some neighbor families were over for a karaoke night. It was so cute. We sat down and he apologized like 20 times for the alcohol being out. Haha it was great. We're going to start teaching them all again this week! He knows he needs to be at church. He said he was afraid to come because the spirit would slap him in the face for not being there in so long (fell away when he was a teenager or young adult). His wife is interested and they're just the best. Go part member families!!!

Sunday we had church! J&M showed up again which was awesome. We weren't expecting to see them again! They loved being there. We're planning on seeing them this week and hopefully helping them get on date for baptism! D. was also there. He's so cool! He's getting a lot more accountable and responsible. Usually we have to set up a ride for him, but this time he arranged for his son to take him. He wants to be there! Coolest contact of my mission, here we go! We were following up with a potential and a guy was standing outside his garage. We said hi and kept walking. I had the strongest feeling to go back and talk to him. I ignored it and decided we'd stop on our way back to the car. The potential wasn't there and thankfully the guy in the garage was still there. He pulled out his phone to answer a call right when we got there, but I stuck out my hand and walked all the way up the driveway to shake his hand anyway. He put the phone away and we started to talk. He told us he didn't know English. We tried to keep talking and he eventually pulled out his phone and typed in google translate that he couldn't understand. Sister Hansen had the google translate app downloaded so we tried that to communicate back. Sadly she didn't have Chinese downloaded. He really wanted to communicate so he signed her into his wifi. We had a nice conversation about his religious background and the Book of Mormon. Turns out he's a Christian and wants a copy of the BoM! He gave us his number and asked us to come back Sunday with a copy in Chinese. Thanks again to Heavenly Father for guiding and directing us. Also thanks technology! 

Today! I got my hair trimmed and got some new shoes to physically prepare myself for a GENERAL AUTHORITY who's coming on Saturday, Elder Stevenson! One of the newer members of the quorum of the twelve apostles. Super pumped. 

Love you all. 

Sister Barnes