Hello everyone! (Oct 23)

We put L. on date! We extended baptism and she said yes so we extended a date for Nov 18th and she said yes! Yay! She always texts her member friend after lessons and tells him how it went. He always tells us what she says and she LOVES THE GOSPEL! This week she was asking why other religions don't use the Book of Mormon. Good question!!!

Our bus driver is doing awesome. He talked to his aunt and uncle to comfort them with their son converting to be a member. He has been talking to us a lot and has been finding lots of cool answers to questions he has. He's still Jewish but loves hearing more about the church. We go so in depth in our Facebook messenger lessons that we're still not done with the restoration. But he's already through Jacob in the Book of Mormon and stopped drinking coffee. I've been praying a lot about knowing when he'll be ready for missionaries in his area to reach out to him, but I feel like he's not quite ready yet. Still working on getting him there though! He took all the OSU Sisters to 5 guys and says he's working on getting me a Torah, cool! 

K. is no longer on date for the 28th of this month. She's working towards Nov 18th instead! She just hasn't felt like she got her strong answer yet. She said that the things we teach her make more sense than the things she was raised with and she's trying to grasp that. We shared Alma 32:28 and explained that "enlightening her understanding" is a way God reveals truth. She really liked that. 

M. is so great. We finished the plan of salvation with him and he absolutely loved it. He made some cool connections on his own. He asks many questions and will be ready before he knows it! His friend just left on a mission and he was so excited to tell us about his first weekly email from the MTC. He is definitely prepared for this time!

I took Sister Ballard on an exchange! She's on week 11 in the field and is training a missionary who's on week 5. She's a super star. We had a ton of fun and laughed all day. It started with the first contact of the day. We were waiting at a cross walk to cross the street. This guy starts walking close by and I go up and introduce myself. I say my name and hold my hand out to shake his. He looks at me, looks at my hand, crosses his arms across his chest, and bows. He straight up bowed to me and didn't even say anything. Then the rest was just a train wreck but it was hilarious. The guy was from Pakistan so I think it was a cultural thing?

Our trio is still a trio! Longest sister one in mission history I think. We'll probably make it all transfer, since transfers are next week! We're not sure what's going to happen. I'm praying I stay on campus for my last transfer! Today is our last Monday pday. Next week starts Wednesday pdays! Some people have asked why we're changing them to Wednesdays, here's what President Stratford said:

As your Mission President I am constantly praying & pondering with the Lord to enlighten me with ideas that will give our missionaries the best opportunity to succeed. Since arriving, I have felt that with P-day on Monday we are not properly leveraging the benefit gained by worshipping on the sabbath. Sunday is the most important day to a missionary. It is the day we renew our covenants made at baptism, along with those made when we accepted a call to serve. We get spiritual & physical energy from this experience and then seem to toss it all away on Monday. After much consideration, I have decided to change P-day in our mission to Wednesday effective November 1st.  Hopefully, this change will allow us to take the Spirit we feel on Sunday and apply it in the work on Monday & Tuesday. Wednesday will be P-day ,then Thursday will be District meetings where we can re-energize for Friday & Saturday

I'm excited, it's going to be awesome! I love being a missionary!!! 

Sister Barnes

Pics

The van

Awful pic but awesome Krystalyn! See, told ya she was tall. 

Mason and Bianca got us Mochi ice cream

Barnes and Noble! Maureen got this tag because she's funny :) I love her!

The trio

We went to the zoo today! Thanks to Sister Moran, Sister Cottle, Sister Rutter, and Krystle Proper from Powell, Marysville, and home for getting us all in!