Surprise Baptism

Brooklyn's Baptism

Let me start with a story.

Once upon a time last week it was fast Sunday. Two Sister Missionaries we were fasting to be able to baptize in June. Right when they got to church, bishop pulled them to the side and said he had a favor. He told them there was a less active family who had a 9 year old daughter who wanted to be baptized. Because she's 9, she would be a convert baptism and the missionaries would need to teach her. They said cool and asked when the baptism would be. He said next Sunday with her active 8 year old cousin. They got special permission and made arrangements to teach her. Then they found out they would have to do it in one lesson. So Monday night, they met Brooklyn and taught her everything. Everything was taught very simply. It took 2 hours but Brooklyn was a trooper and made it through.  She had her interview on Saturday. She got baptized and confirmed on Sunday with her cousin. She was super happy and it was really cool for the missionaries to see the miracles that come from fasting. They're excited to see her family start to come back to church. The less active family will be more active, Brooklyn got baptized, the missionary's fast to baptize in June came to pass! And they all lived happily ever after 

Cool story huh? Want to know something cool? IT'S A TRUE STORY. And I was blessed to be one of the missionaries. God is good. 

Yesterday was a really cool day. Brooklyn's baptism was awesome. A less active couple we've been working with showed up to church! We've been working with them for the last little while and they haven't been to church in 11 months. When they walked in the door our jaws dropped. They were talking to each other last night and were talking about church. They said, "well, want to shock them tomorrow?" Then they came! That was cool. Then there's this less active lady we've been working with since the area boundary changes. She's been less active for years. We teach her once a week so we've gotten pretty close with her. We finally helped her overcome her concerns and come to church. We showed up before church to make sure she was ready and she opened the door with her dress on and ready to go! It was her first time going in 11 years. Watching her take the sacrament was one of the happiest things ever. 

There were too many other good things. I'll just list them out.

We had exchanges with the Dublin Sisters, I was with Sister Hansen. She's been out almost 5 months and is awesome.  We got a Chinese Book of Mormon for our investigator. He's awesome. We taught the plan of salvation using the BoM. He would read a verse out loud in Chinese then interpret it to English. He really understood the plan and loves it. He's getting baptized in August.  Anna is doing good. Her son is not. He had another heart attack and is still in the hospital.  M. wants to get baptized into our church! But the Bible baptist preacher is still a bum and just asked them to be Sunday School teachers. Of course they're awesome so they said yes. But it interferes with our sacrament meeting. They'll still come to our Sunday School class, but they have over commitments that they're stuck with.  Marsha got her patriarchal blessing! It was from Brother Mitchell from the Powell Ward. He just got called as the stake patriarch! It was crazy to see a picture of them both, 2 areas colliding!  I made Sister Hall bike on Saturday. It was just going to be for 2 hours in the morning, but it ended up being from 10 am-7 pm. Haha oops. We had our last interviews with President Daines. I'm so thankful for his service and example he's been to me and so many others. His insights are always inspiring. After the interview he gave me and Sister Hall blessings. It was super duper cool. I love the priesthood.  And there was so much more.

That's all for this week. Upcoming events: temple tomorrow for zone conference, exchanges Thursday, Father's Day Sunday, NO PDAY MONDAY because it's already transfer week. I'll email next Wednesday with transfer news.

Shoutout to my dad for being the best dad ever. I love you! 

Everyone go to this link and watch this cute video about fatherhood. 

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-002-earthly-father-heavenly-father?lang=eng

Love you all, 

Sister Barnes

I love to see the temple

MLC

Sis Holbrook

It's getting hot and we did yardwork so we felt like we earned ice
cream. A yummy place called Rollies just opened in Marysville.

Hello everybody!

This week was another great one!

TEMPLE DAY!
So I've been looking forward to this day since we heard we would be able to go. Waking up Tuesday morning was even more exciting than Christmas morning! We had a great MLC and I learned a lot about how to be a better teacher and how I make my studies more meaningful. Then we went to the temple for a session. President Daines was able to take a bunch of us through the veil and it was a super special experience. Something really cool. We went in fasting and I fasted to know what to do to help someone get baptized before President leaves at the end of the month. I was praying a lot to try to know what to do. I had a prompting to look at the name I was doing work for. Her name was "Anna." I felt a ton of peace and got some good ideas about how to help our investigator Anna keep progressing!

Speaking of Anna. We taught her on exchanges!. We taught the word of wisdom to be sure she will be ready to be baptized in a few weeks. She said the only thing she had issues with was tobacco, which we suspected. She said that she's been working on quitting and actually completely stopped LAST WEEK! She's still getting treatments and help and stuff, but she was excited to see that she was living God's commandment before she knew it was a commandment. Sadly her 19 year old son had 2 heart attacks and she has been in the ICU with him and hasn't felt comfortable leaving his side. We haven't heard from her since Saturday so we hope she's okay. We will have to move her baptism but it's okay, we will give her some time to be ready.

Everyone else is doing pretty good! Lots of people flaked out for church but it's okay, we will work even harder to get everyone there next week!

We had exchanges! I got to go with Sister Holbrook who only has one transfer left. She's an awesome missionary and I was able to learn a lot from her!

That's about all that's super worth sharing. This week we behave interviews and more exchanges! I love the gospel.

Sister Barnes

Blessings on miracles on blessings

OHIO with Sister Wakley and Horne

The District or The Beatles? Can't tell!

Some members have a ceramic shop - I picked Columbus and Nauvoo!

Hello! We had a super duper busy week. We had back to back lessons almost every day. We had 2 exchanges and a lot of awesome miracles. We have been praying, and praying, and praying some more to come in contact with those who are prepared to receive AND act upon our message. And we have been working like crazy to help us find them, and help them find us. And here we are a transfer and a half later, and the miracles came raining down from Heaven all at once! From all sorts of sources.. self referral, sketchy sounding former, street contact, and a part member family! Here we go!

She found us: We were teaching a lesson at the church and we kept getting calls and texts...but we were in a lesson so we couldn't look. After the lesson we find out there is a lady at the church looking for the Sister Missionaries! It was mutual night, so there were actually people at the church, and they helped her out! We called her, and found her at the church after our lesson. SHE'S SO PREPARED!!!! We had our first lesson with her on Saturday and about half way through she says, " I hope this doesn't make me sound crazy, but this just all feels so familiar. I feel like I've been here, with you, before. This church is where I belong." WHAT???? So cool!!! We told her we would be holding a baptismal service on June 17th, and she almost lost her breath. We asked her if she would prepare to be baptized on that day, and she said, "yes! Um, yeah!! Yes! Yes! Oh my yes!! Yes!" So she's planning on getting baptized on June 17th! Oh also, she's been slipping in and out of sacrament meeting the past couple weeks, just because! I just love her!

The man who called the Cops: Sister Hall met a guy on exchanges about a month ago. About 1 ½ years ago he felt like the Elders were pushing him too hard and he threatened to call the cops if they came back. She saw that, but thought, "well, we're Sisters, not Elders. Maybe he won't call the cops." We taught him the restoration and he loved it!! He said he'd come to church, but he didn't, and he missed his return appointment... so we lost contact for a while. She really felt like he was ready though so we kept trying him. We found him again, and taught him twice this week, and he came to church. He was GLOWING! He said he loved it so much!! He's getting baptized on June 17th as well. He's so perfect, and so ready!!! Yay!!

Last stop of the night: I met this guy on exchanges on Tuesday! I was kinda pooooped from the day and was about ready to head home and finish updating for the last few minutes of the night. He was standing in his garage and we walked by. I didn't feel like talking so I ignored the prompting to stop. I justified that as along as he doesn't see us we can pretend that we didn't see him.. right? Wrong. I looked up and he was watching us. So we stopped and talked. Wow, glad we did! We taught him the Restoration and he loved it! He didn't believe in God four years ago. Then he got a divorce and started reading the Bible because his grandpa told him there was a prophet in the Bible with the same name as his. He hadn't found a church he wanted to join, until now!! He's on date to be baptized as well! We taught him the Plan of Salvation on Saturday and he loved it. He had a date to be baptized on June 17th as well, but he missed church yesterday :( so we are going to have to bump it back.

If we all had faith like children: Oh my goodness, E. is a dream! She's a daughter of a less active lady, and she really wants to be baptized!!! She's 10 years old. Her birthday is 2 days before mine. She knows a lot about God because her grandma takes her to her church. She wants to be a Mormon though! Wahoo!! We taught her and her little friend. They were having a sleepover. The lesson went great. During the lesson we really emphasized that everything GOOD comes from God. At the end of the lesson, we asked them to pray to know if what we taught was true and if the church is true. They got on their knees right then, and prayed about it, individually. They both opened their eyes when they were done, and they said they know the church is true. We asked why, and they said "they felt good, so they knew it was true!" We couldn't ask her friend to be baptized, because we don't know her parents, but E. is getting baptized on July 22nd!!! Yay yay yay!!!

So yeah! Those are the highlight experiences. On Tuesday I got to be with the lovely Sister Wakley from Idaho. She is an angel and an incredible teacher! The spirit is so strong whenever she opens her mouth. Thursday I was with Sister Mock! This was our second exchange together. Our first one was about 3 months ago, wow how time flies! We also had a ton of fun and she is an amazing missionary. She has such genuine love for all who we meet! I love being able to go on exchanges and learn from these awesome Sisters.

Life is good. I am happy! I am looking forward to this week. We have MLC tomorrow and for part of it we get to go to the TEMPLE! I am literally more excited than anything. We have another exchange on Thursday! I love being busy and doing the Lord's work.

Love, Sister Barnes