"Live How You Want Others to Live"

The note we sent to the sisters in our zone!

Rain and humidity ... love my hair?!

Read the story below about the gum...

Hello!

Today we are going to the zoo. I am very excited! This week was great. We have been busy with more lessons...what a good problem to have! We also got our area books fixed and have spent some time re entering everything. We are almost caught up which is a giant relief!

J&M are finally working towards being baptized on July 1st. We are excited! We had some good lessons with them this week. He asks a lot of really deep questions like, "where did the horses come from that were on the promised land when Lehi's family arrived?" We have been able to simply answer some and direct him to articles and things on LDS.org. One time we tried to answer a question that we didn't know much about. Let's just say we have decided to only teach what we know... preach my gospel!

My favorite moment of the week was when we were teaching C&C. We were going through the plan of salvation and had the 7 years old read the words to "I am a Child of God." The Spirit filled my heart and gave me a glimpse of how much better their lives are getting because of the gospel. Although they've been kind of flakey lately and haven't been to church the past few weeks, we can really see the light of Christ entering their eyes.

One funny thing. We wave at everyone we drive by, walk by, bike by, or anything. We drove past this little girl who was walking down the road eating some pizza. She waved back and something flew out of her hand and hit our car. We thought it was just a pizza crust or something. We forgot about it and later Sister Hall said "she didn't throw pizza" and we found a glob of gum on our car. Sister Hall started to pull it off but it just kept going and going and it is still on the car. Ew. We will scrub it today.

Oh yeah, the subject line. There is a funny funny guy who we are teaching. He said "live how you want others to live" and I really liked that. It's like the golden rule but just for life in general.

That's all for this week, love you all!

Sister Barnes

God is Good, Life is Good

Mother's Day facetime is the BEST!!

This week and a half was incredible and very exhausting!

Because of how tired we are, we are taking lots of this day to rest. So, this email may be kinda short and lame, I apologize.

Our area book apps broke almost 2 weeks ago and finally Monday they got fixed. The high up guy in the IT office in salt lake says it best, "sorry you are experiencing every known issue on the books right now." Basically we couldn't sync and 2 weeks worth of stuff got erased but we took screenshots before so it's not a huge deal.. just taking ages to put back together. At one point we had 38 unreported lessons 😅

Busy. We have been booked back to back almost all day every day. So many awesome people have been willing to visit with us and make and keep commitments. It's wonderful. Highlight story... Sister Hall was backing the car and this dad was just watching. He calls his 15 yr old son and 7 yr old daughter over to watch. So they stared at her for a while. She got in and said "um, I think they want to talk to us" so we pulled up and talked. They want to come to church and are so prepared for the gospel. We are teaching them again on Friday!

God's timing this week has been amazing. One example: we called this guy that I met on exchanges a few weeks ago. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he gave us his number. We called a few days ago and asked if he's read from it yet. He said something like, "wow, that's crazy! I just opened it right before you called!" Tender mercies.

Interviews with President Daines. Let's just say President loves us. When I sat down he was commenting about how long I've been in the North 1 Zone (Over 7 months). He said that he really wants to put either me or Sister Hall on OSU campus because we have the perfect personalities and it would be natural for us. Then he said "but, it's not worth it to separate you two." YES! So we think we are staying together another transfer. A few weeks ago we asked him if he would give us blessings before he leaves. He said he promises to do it after the next interviews if I promised to do something. What? Visit them when I get home! I said it's a done deal. I love the Daines.

Mother's Day was fun! Sister Hall and I went over to Marsha's and all 3 of us were together for the call to Sister Hall's family and my family. I love my mom! She's the best mom ever and I hope to be even half as great as she is some day.

Hm, that's enough for this week. Just know it was really really good. Transfer calls will come probably in a few hours so I'll email again when they come.

Lots of love!
Sister Barnes

Transfer news.. we are BOTH STAYING!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!! also I FORGOT THE BEST PART OF THE WEEK! So PMG says that we are supposed to ask for referrals from everyone. We both were pretty bad at this. Until... we came up with a solution. A referral asking "incentive." It's between me and Sister Hall. Here are the rules. First person that asks 100 people for referrals wins. You have to win by 5. Loser has to buy the other frozen custard from Whit's. It doesn't seem like that much fun but oh man it is. I don't think we've let a single person slip by without asking them! The current score is 29-23. I'm up 😏 So this was a very inspired incentive because a majority of the people we ask give us at least 1 or 2! And, when we go to contact the referrals they usually give us another. It's a big chain that I think will go on forever. It's great and it's how we are finding the elect.

Prayers and pepto-bismol

Hey family and friends!

This week was wonderful and exhausting!

I'll begin with yesterday, church day! I have a new record for number of investigators at church. I will begin with them and talk about their progress this week:
1&2- J&M! They were new investigators when I got here and we taught them for a few weeks until she got pneumonia then they got busy and we had to pause the visits. We stopped by this week and we were able to find out that they discussed it and want to begin meeting with us again!! She shared some funny comments she made to him that are giving us and idea of what's up. She told him, "maybe I'll just have to wait until you die to become a Mormon!" So we think he is more hesitant but she is all in. They came to church and sat near Marsha and were taking notes and told some of the members how much they enjoyed it. We are meeting with them tomorrow and will pick up where we left off.
3- S. She is on date for June 10th. She had to cancel our lesson this week and is hard to get ahold of to set up additional lessons. We stopped by her work this week to set up a time and to see if she would be coming to church. She's kinda odd and suuuper funny. We asked what her schedule was like this weekend and she said, "I'm off Sunday, wanna hang out?" I said, "yeah, wanna come to church?" She said, "yeah, but I need a ride." So we got her a ride and she came.
4- Th!! I met her on exchanges a few weeks ago. She's the fuuuunnny lady who said "Jesus should be black!" So she had to postpone our return appointment and we were finally able to get back to see her. She is super blunt and a little stubborn but we tried anyway. We taught her the plan of salvation on Saturday night and she committed to work towards being baptized on June 24th. She told us she didn't really want to come to church so that was a concern. We told her we'd call her in the morning. We called Sunday morning and she answered the phone suuuper happy and said, "I'm coming to church!" She came and loved it. We're seeing her Tuesday morning.
5- D! He was taught a little by previous sisters but apparently they were too pushy and scared him away. He's the one who's brother asked Sister Hall if we believe in marriage. He said he didn't have a car but he wanted to get himself to church. He rolled up on his bike and stayed the whole time. Go D!
6- Faithful V. We didn't see them this week, but we will be dropping them next week. He comes to church and pays his tithing but isn't willing to get baptized or become a member. His wife refuses to come to church. No progress so no more visits.
7- M is a member family's friend. She is 14 years old and adorable. She's been coming to church for a few months and going to activities. I thought she was another daughter, I had no idea she wasn't a member. Through the ward council, they were selected to be one of the families we would be teaching all the lessons to. We arranged for her to be there. We had a great restoration lesson and she was excited to get her own Book of Mormon. We set up our next appointment and she whispered to her member friend that she "better be here." Sister H is going to talk to her mom this week and get permission for us to be meeting with her!! I love member missionary work. And lessons in members homes... to member's friends!!
 
Sister Hall met R. on exchanges a few weeks ago. She was doing yardwork and they offered to help. She said, "thank you, god!" Raising her hands in the air. We went back a few times and she took us to dinner. We were talking about our missions and she told us she wants a church tour and to take all of the lessons. Service softens hearts, folks.

Other eventful things MLC was Tuesday. I love MLC. I learned a lot about some of the basics of things we are expected to do as leaders and as missionaries. It was awesome.

I was a little under the weather this week. Tuesday I had terrible terrible allergies. Wednesday it turned into an awful sinus infection. Thursday was a really bad cold. Friday was still a bad cold and I had no energy. Saturday I woke up so sick and I think I had the flu. Only problem was we were stacked with lessons back to back literally all day, including dinner with an investigator. I wasn't about to let Satan take over the day! So I prayed a ton and took a giant nap during lunch. Between every lesson I took some Pepto-Bismol and made it through alive! It was a little miserable but I would've felt sick at home or felt sick doing the Lord's work so I chose the Lord's work! Sorry mom, I'll rest after my mission 😏

Thursday we had exchanges and I was with my grand baby Sister Mayhew! She's been out about 3 months and finishes her training next week. We had lots of fun!

We went to drug court again this week and we are becoming really good friends with the Staff. When we were in the elevator to leave when one guy sees us. He goes "Wait!" Puts his arm in the elevator so it stops, and comes at Sister Hall to give her a HUG goodbye. She got super awkward, squished her body in the back corner of the elevator, stuck her arm out as far as she could, closed her eyes, and said, "WE CAN'T GIVE HUGS!!!" And he was super confused. It all happened so fast, and then we felt super awkward... But, then she pulled herself together, gave him a normal explanation of why she got way weird, and then gave him a firm handshake. Hopefully he understood. This Wednesday might be a little awkward, but that's okay, because we embrace it! I was just dying laughing the whole time, sorry I didn't help 😂😂😂

We met with the less active who stopped us in the parking lot and asked us to meet with him. We went over with him, his crazy 3 year old son, his non member mom and her non member bf. We taught them the restoration and it was really good. He came back to church!! Huge thing for him.

That's just a few of the awesome things, I'll share more on Sunday when we FaceTime!! We will be facetiming at Marsha's and I'll probably call around 7:45 pm my time. Love you and talk to you then!

Next week is transfer week already!! Sister Hall and I are 95% sure we are staying. How do we know? I'll share a few things. So just barely I asked her what percentage we're sure we're staying together. I wrote 95 down and she said hmm, 95! Then earlier this week I made some banana muffins and we were eating them during our companion Study yesterday and out of nowhere we both say something like "we should put chocolate chips in these next time." And we looked at each other and just laughed because we have the exact same thought process about 100% of the time. Oh also after MLC we were talking to President Daines and he told us that we have a great companionship that it did not begin here. Whaaat!!! We were probably bffs in the pre earth life so THAT’S COOL!!!

Bye! I'll be emailing next week on Wednesday.

Love,
Sister Barnes

"Do You Believe in Marriage?"

Sis Gibson. Ohio is covered in dandelions!

A reformed dead cherry tree. The guy that lives here wants a Book of Mormon.

Matching night gowns and cool hats

I've been out longer than all three of these sisters combined. Yikes I'm old!

It's been raining for three days straight, we have to wear rain boots.

We drove up to a house and this guard dog was out. Sister Hall told me to unroll the window to see if he bites. He jumped up to the window and licked me a lot. Haha, nice dog.

Hello everyone!

This week was really good and unbelievably fast. I'll share a few things.

We had exchanges on Tuesday and Thursday. Exchange days bring miracles! Tuesday I was with Sister Gibson who came out a transfer after me. She's an incredible missionary! Her goal for the day was to be obedient to her first spiritual promptings. On the way to first person of the day we drove past a park. Sister Gibson said, "there are people at that park, we should stop and talk to them." So we pulled into the parking lot and embraced all sorts of awkward situations and talked to a few people anyway. The first was a photographer for a Columbus newspaper. He was here on business and we were able to share the Prince of Peace video. He doesn't like talking about his feelings
or beliefs but we could tell he was touched and that was needed. Then there was a dad watching his son play on the playground. The 4 year old son started talking to us so we worked our way over to his dad. We ended up teaching him a fair amount of the restoration and committing him to read from the Book of Mormon and allow the Elders to come to his home to teach his whole family. It was a miracle and he's a new investigator for the elders! Thursday I was with Sister Horne who came
out just a few weeks ago. Her goal was to talk with everyone. We were on bikes and went a few miles to contact some potentials. We saw a lady in her parked car with the window open. We met her and instantly started teaching the restoration using the pamphlet. We taught her the whole thing and extended baptism. She said yes. I felt strongly to extend a date for June 17th which she accepted! Sister Horne was so exited that someone accepted a date on the first contact and that we
met her because of our extra effort to talk with everyone. Sister Hall had a dream the night before that I put someone on date for baptism. She told me that morning and said she didn't know who I would extend to. I guess it was a prophesy!

Last night we had a lot of extra miles and had a feeling to go to the tippy top of our area to a certain street. It was wayyy up in the boonies and there were only like 4 houses on the long street so we
drove up to each of them. A cute old couple were in one of the houses. They let us right in and started by saying they didn't want to disappoint us but they weren't interested. We taught
the restoration with the pamphlet. The whole time we kept getting the feeling to tie it back to eternal families, so we did. The spirit was so strong and throughout the lesson you could see them locked into the discussion. It was amazing. We are going back this week!

The ward council started a thing a few years ago called the rolling 15. Basically there's a consistent 15 families in the ward that the missionaries will be teaching. It's a combination of less active,
active, and part member families. One family we will be teaching have a daughter who has a friend who has been coming to church and mutual for a while. We are working with them to have the friend join in on the lessons. Another family has a 9 year old daughter who hasn't been baptized and we will be helping her progress towards that! I love this ward.

Oh yeah! The subject line! We were talking to this one guy. His brother came out and was quite tipsy. He said to Sister Hall "you are sooooo beautiful" and stared at her for like 2 mins. Then turned to me and said "you have beauuuutiful eyes" then when we left he asked sis hall "do you believe in marriage?" She said "uh, yeah." Then I said "k bye!!!" And we left real quick. HAAH I saved her
life.

That's about it! This week will be crazy again. MLC and more exchanges! I love the gospel. I love Sister Hall! I love Marysville.

Love,
Sister Barnes