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