Thursday, April 13, 2017

Want some honey?





Add caption

Honda shirts
Der Dutchman donuts ... the best Amish food


This is where the honeycomb was
This is the honeycomb
This is the stuff we ate
Wow this email is going to be long. Buckle your seat belts to hear about an awesome week!

I'll begin with Monday night, shortly after pday ended. We were going to an appointment in a less desirable part of our area. We got there and were walking to the condo when we realized we didn't have a copy of the Book of Mormon in our bags. We hurried back to the car and got it. On the way back to the condo for the second time, a lady passed by. Shortly after, she turned around and asked, "Do you two come here very often?" We said that we weren't there super often. She asked what we thought of the area. We weren't sure why she was asking, but the spirit prompted us to let her know that it was a less desirable part of town, haha. We talked for a little while about better places to live. She then asked where our church was located. She said, "oh, after we move here we are planning on going there!" Turns out she has a coworker who's a member in the ward who has been inviting her for years. Her daughter is a member but sounds like she's less active. She wants her son to have good friends and get involved in the church! We got her contact info and she promised to see us at church and let us teach her as soon as she moves here. Tender mercy that we "forgot" a Book of Mormon.

Tuesday, MLC day, was wonderful. This was trip #1 of the week to the mission home. We watched the Prince of Peace video in preparation for presenting it to our zones on Wednesday! I could go on for hours but I'll share one cool insight from the meeting: "God's promises to his children are most often fulfilled by his children." How cool! The way that god fulfills his promises is through others. This means it's super important to follow our promptings! Oh also...President Daines pulled us aside and told us he got a call from the Marysville police saying that fires weren't allowed in city limits. Haha my mission goal was to having cops called on us for something. This wasn't the kind of thing I was thinking but I guess it'll do
👮🚓 haha 😂

Wednesday, Zone Training Meeting and Interview day, was wonderful as well. One cool insight I'll share: faith without works is dead, and works without faith is also dead. This applies to missionary work in a lot of different aspects. Interviews were awesome! This was trip #2 to the mission home. I'm always able to see how much President Daines cares about his missionaries. So the past few weeks we've been working with the Marysville Elders, our ward mission leader, our bishop, the assistants, and President Daines on getting our area boundaries redone. The sisters used to have the north 2/3 of the ward boundaries and the Elders had the south 1/3. We came up with a proposal for the boundaries to be split half way, this time east and west. After lots of prayer and planning we were able to put the new area boundaries into play. We reassigned investigators and had a coordination meeting to decide how to best help the people we're working with. It was cool to see both us and the Elders forget ourselves and get out of the way of the work. The spirit helped us decide how to help people best. Now we basically got doubled in to half of an area! We spent some time going through some people and meeting lots of the people we'll be working with.

Thursday we went to try to met a lot of the new investigators in our new area. We didn't meet a whole lot of them, so hopefully I'll be able to share more next week. We were able to contact a referral from a member who moved out. We pull up to the house and the teenage daughter is outside washing her car. We talk for a bit and eventually go inside and teach the restoration. She loved the whole thing. There's a member who works at the school and put a Book of Mormon in the school library. S. has talked to the member about it a lot and was excited to receive her own copy. We got her number and she was planning on joining us for conference. ...until something in the area book went weird and deleted her info. So we didn't have her number. We stopped by again and talked to some members who may know her but sadly weren't able to get in contact with her before Conference. We will try by again this week and teach her and her mom.

Friday the Prince of Peace video came out! We've been using it all the time in contacts, lesson, dinner appointments, etc.

Saturday, conference day! We began the morning by teaching a new convert's mom. He joined the church a few years ago despite the awful persecution he received from his mother. She's very against the church and described herself as "hostile" toward missionaries and most members. He and the spirit finally convinced her to take one lesson. It was a good lesson. We used the Prince of Peace video to bring the spirit and start the discussion. We got through part of the restoration lesson and she committed to watch one talk from conference. This was big! She didn't agree to a return appointment yet, but she will. We know she will. Then conference time. We met a member at an investigator's home and had a great time there. They all enjoyed Conference. The husband had many questions about the pre earth life and they were all answered right as he asked them. Perfect session for them. We got to explain the role of prophets and apostles and got him asking even more questions! The Lord has been softening his heart. After this, we went to the mission home! Trip to the mission home #3. All the zone leaders were there for the first session of conference and the Sister Training Leaders came for Between conferences we planned a surprise for President. We worked with Sister Daines and their son Jake to make it all work. We all got President Daines shirts!! After President thought the Elders left and before he knew we would be there, we all gathered in the backyard and got our shirts on. We walked in and it was so funny to see President's face. Haha happy April fools day! The Elders left and the Sisters stayed and ate lunch, watched Conference, and had a nice discussion after.. all in our President Daines shirts!

Sunday was more of a calm spiritual day. Everyone who planned on joining us for conference bailed. We watched at some awesome members houses. I went into conference with many questions about random things. As I was watching, I'd often refer to the questions I had previously recorded. I would put a mark in the margin for every phrase or thought that answered one of these questions. By the end, every question has been answered multiple times.  I feel like the speakers all got ahold of my questions and wrote their talks accordingly. I know it was actually the spirit and I'm so thankful for it. I'm excited to apply what I've learned! I can't think of a favorite talk, I just loved them all!

We're excited about the new area. So we lost a few sketchy run down towns and a bunch of country and inherited a few cute small towns and some developing areas! It's super awesome and we've already met a lot of cool people. A less active that's now in our area described the change of Sisters being there perfectly..."it's about time!" Haha us and a lot of people are super excited :)

Okay let me tell you a little more about Marysville. There's like a giant Honda plant and almost everyone that lives here works for Honda. A member got us Honda shirts so we can be true Marysville Sisters. We wonder how much success we'd get if we were to wear these around. We'd probably get in more doors!

Coolest not super spiritual thing of my mission. So we were going to contact a potential in the new area as a back up for a less active that bailed. When we got to the apartments there were a few people and a bunch of equipment outside of her place. We walk up to see what's up and see a piece of the front siding off of the building and lots of little black things crawling around. Then we see them flying. They were bees. Then we see a pan full of honeycomb. Turns out they've been having a bee problem for years and they were making lots of honey. We got educated on honey bees by the bee farmer dude that got called in and he even gave us some honeycomb. We got home and ate it! So you just have to chew on it until all the honey's out then you spit out the bees wax. Haha! Can't get more fresh than this. So good and I'm not even dead 
🐝 🍯

It's been a good week. We just got the transfer news, Sister Hansen is getting transferred and I'm staying here! This transfer flew by faster than anything. I'll miss Sister Hansen but I'm glad we get to be friends forever
😄. I'll find out who my new companion is tomorrow and will have a regular pday next Monday.

Lots of love,
Sister Barnes

No comments:

Post a Comment