Hello Everyone!
This week was great. I loved the zone conference we had with Elder Dyches from the Seventy! I learned so much. I feel like I'll never become the kind of missionary I want to be, there is always something to improve on! I am excited to keep working hard the last few weeks of my mission.
This week missionary work wise was fantastic. We met some really cool people! I'll update you on a few people. J is the coolest guy ever. We met him one of my first days here. He has so many great questions! We had a lesson with him on Sunday and he is one of he most prepared people I've ever met. Yesterday we sent a text to follow up on his reading and he said he's read a bunch and was preparing to read again that evening! He's the best. We also met with a part member less active family. Within two visits we were able to find out why she's less active and got her permission to start teaching her and her SEVEN kids about the church. Two of them have been baptized, two of them are over 8 and haven't been baptized, and all seven of them have a burning desire to come to church. They are so cute. A few of them wanted to pretend to be missionaries. They borrowed my name tag and I got a picture with them.
We found this awesome apartment complex. We were driving out of our apartments one day and spotted a few buildings pretty close to us. We checked it out and they are gold. The street doesn't even exist on a map yet and they have never been touched by missionaries! People who live there are mostly students who recently graduated from OSU. I was so happy to be around college aged kids again I almost cried. There is a ton of potential in there, and we've already started teaching a few people there!
On Saturday we raked leaves with the ward. It was fun and we got a cool "light the world" video to get ready for the initiative! We had a prompting to keep the rakes in the car. That night we were driving home for dinner and saw an old man struggling to rake his leaves. We quickly pulled off on the next street and ran over, rake in hand, ready to work! We asked if we could help as we were already starting to take. He was so thankful and he and his wife were so impressed. We will be stopping by again soon.
One of the weirdest days ever was Monday. Some Elders called us saying they had a weird favor. They used to be teaching this one lady who called them asking if she could join them for a day. She earned herself some community service hours and wanted to help the missionaries! Since she's a girl and they're Elders, they can't have a girl with them all day. So they called us. Not sure why us, there are several sisters way closer to their area. Oh well. So we were like okay cool this will be an adventure. So we get ahold of her and she meets up with us a little later. She was just super weird and seemed pretty off. We had a companionship study where she ended up telling us why she was in prison. We went to contact some potentials and she would look through people's windows to see if they were home. When people would talk to us, she would abruptly cut in and ask, "would you mind providing your contact information so we can get ahold of you that way?" And people would just stop talking to us haha. She had good intentions so it was hard, but it was just weird. After very single interaction with anyone she would correct things we did or said and tried to tell us a better way to do missionary work. We were like oh k thanks. We were riding in her car and there were people honking at us all day. I didn't think much of it until some lady pulled up and made us roll the window down. She said the brake lights were out and we were going to get ourselves killed. She just said k thanks then explained to us that the humidity in Ohio got in them so you just can't see the lights, but that they work perfectly fine. Comforting, huh?! Both Sister Herrera and I had an uneasy feeling about keeping her with us until 9 that night, so we came up with a plan. While she was talking to someone in a nursing home, we stepped aside and called our district leader. We explained that we were in a situation that we needed them to call at a specific time to bail us out. So they did. They told us our apartment was flooding and we needed to get back immediately and it would probably take the rest of the day to clean up. We apologized to this lady and asked her to take us home right then. So the Elders bailed us out and we're never going to spend the day with a criminal again. What an experience 😂
I've been trying not to think about going home too often, but the other day I was reflecting on my mission and how great it's been. I was remembering back to before I left and how inadequate I felt. I was also remembering how it never really "hit me" that I was going on a mission. Not when I started my papers, not when I got my call, not when I got set apart, not when I got to the MTC, not when I got to Ohio, not when I got to my first area, and still not even now. It was weird for me to look around and see people freaking out like, "oh my gosh! We're missionaries! I feel so great!" And I was there not feeling very different at all. I wondered if something was wrong with me or if I wasn't worthy or supposed to be here. I never really doubted that, but I just didn't feel anything new. Then this week I FINALLY realized it. The reason why it never "hit me" that I was a missionary was because I didn't change into a completely new person. Putting on a name tag wasn't putting on a costume to be someone I'm not. Being Sister Barnes doesn't mean I'm not Emily. The main difference is my purpose and what I'm striving to do. There are spiritual things and other aspects of my life that have been effected by this. I am still me, but a more refined and better me. Why? Because I'm living the gospel for the first real time ever. I am beginning to understand the plan of salvation which causes me to have a desire to fully obey all of the commandments. I have "no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." I am happy because I'm living the gospel. I have the spirit more abundantly with me. And you know what's cool? It never has to dull, slow down, or go away. My mission will not be the spiritual peak of my life. It's the start of a life long journey that I am on. I love being a missionary. I'll miss being called and set apart to be inviting and helping people come unto Christ full time, but the good news is it won't just stop! It'll just be in different ways. I'm nervous but starting to get excited to see how that all plays out.
Life is good! I'm excited for thanksgiving this week. We have had so many people offer to have us over, it's wonderful! We were also given a turkey and it's currently cooking in the oven. We got stuff for a huge thanksgiving feast which we'll enjoy together later today. Happy thanksgiving! Be thankful!
Love,
Sister Barnes
Pics
We got Ohio hats
Zone conference
Part of my posterity... I trained sister flora who trained sister Mayhew who trained sister Herrera who I'm follow up training, and sister Mayhew is follow up training sister Jensen. Just missing my other baby Sister Edmunds who I follow up trained last transfer!
This week was great. I loved the zone conference we had with Elder Dyches from the Seventy! I learned so much. I feel like I'll never become the kind of missionary I want to be, there is always something to improve on! I am excited to keep working hard the last few weeks of my mission.
This week missionary work wise was fantastic. We met some really cool people! I'll update you on a few people. J is the coolest guy ever. We met him one of my first days here. He has so many great questions! We had a lesson with him on Sunday and he is one of he most prepared people I've ever met. Yesterday we sent a text to follow up on his reading and he said he's read a bunch and was preparing to read again that evening! He's the best. We also met with a part member less active family. Within two visits we were able to find out why she's less active and got her permission to start teaching her and her SEVEN kids about the church. Two of them have been baptized, two of them are over 8 and haven't been baptized, and all seven of them have a burning desire to come to church. They are so cute. A few of them wanted to pretend to be missionaries. They borrowed my name tag and I got a picture with them.
We found this awesome apartment complex. We were driving out of our apartments one day and spotted a few buildings pretty close to us. We checked it out and they are gold. The street doesn't even exist on a map yet and they have never been touched by missionaries! People who live there are mostly students who recently graduated from OSU. I was so happy to be around college aged kids again I almost cried. There is a ton of potential in there, and we've already started teaching a few people there!
On Saturday we raked leaves with the ward. It was fun and we got a cool "light the world" video to get ready for the initiative! We had a prompting to keep the rakes in the car. That night we were driving home for dinner and saw an old man struggling to rake his leaves. We quickly pulled off on the next street and ran over, rake in hand, ready to work! We asked if we could help as we were already starting to take. He was so thankful and he and his wife were so impressed. We will be stopping by again soon.
One of the weirdest days ever was Monday. Some Elders called us saying they had a weird favor. They used to be teaching this one lady who called them asking if she could join them for a day. She earned herself some community service hours and wanted to help the missionaries! Since she's a girl and they're Elders, they can't have a girl with them all day. So they called us. Not sure why us, there are several sisters way closer to their area. Oh well. So we were like okay cool this will be an adventure. So we get ahold of her and she meets up with us a little later. She was just super weird and seemed pretty off. We had a companionship study where she ended up telling us why she was in prison. We went to contact some potentials and she would look through people's windows to see if they were home. When people would talk to us, she would abruptly cut in and ask, "would you mind providing your contact information so we can get ahold of you that way?" And people would just stop talking to us haha. She had good intentions so it was hard, but it was just weird. After very single interaction with anyone she would correct things we did or said and tried to tell us a better way to do missionary work. We were like oh k thanks. We were riding in her car and there were people honking at us all day. I didn't think much of it until some lady pulled up and made us roll the window down. She said the brake lights were out and we were going to get ourselves killed. She just said k thanks then explained to us that the humidity in Ohio got in them so you just can't see the lights, but that they work perfectly fine. Comforting, huh?! Both Sister Herrera and I had an uneasy feeling about keeping her with us until 9 that night, so we came up with a plan. While she was talking to someone in a nursing home, we stepped aside and called our district leader. We explained that we were in a situation that we needed them to call at a specific time to bail us out. So they did. They told us our apartment was flooding and we needed to get back immediately and it would probably take the rest of the day to clean up. We apologized to this lady and asked her to take us home right then. So the Elders bailed us out and we're never going to spend the day with a criminal again. What an experience 😂
I've been trying not to think about going home too often, but the other day I was reflecting on my mission and how great it's been. I was remembering back to before I left and how inadequate I felt. I was also remembering how it never really "hit me" that I was going on a mission. Not when I started my papers, not when I got my call, not when I got set apart, not when I got to the MTC, not when I got to Ohio, not when I got to my first area, and still not even now. It was weird for me to look around and see people freaking out like, "oh my gosh! We're missionaries! I feel so great!" And I was there not feeling very different at all. I wondered if something was wrong with me or if I wasn't worthy or supposed to be here. I never really doubted that, but I just didn't feel anything new. Then this week I FINALLY realized it. The reason why it never "hit me" that I was a missionary was because I didn't change into a completely new person. Putting on a name tag wasn't putting on a costume to be someone I'm not. Being Sister Barnes doesn't mean I'm not Emily. The main difference is my purpose and what I'm striving to do. There are spiritual things and other aspects of my life that have been effected by this. I am still me, but a more refined and better me. Why? Because I'm living the gospel for the first real time ever. I am beginning to understand the plan of salvation which causes me to have a desire to fully obey all of the commandments. I have "no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." I am happy because I'm living the gospel. I have the spirit more abundantly with me. And you know what's cool? It never has to dull, slow down, or go away. My mission will not be the spiritual peak of my life. It's the start of a life long journey that I am on. I love being a missionary. I'll miss being called and set apart to be inviting and helping people come unto Christ full time, but the good news is it won't just stop! It'll just be in different ways. I'm nervous but starting to get excited to see how that all plays out.
Life is good! I'm excited for thanksgiving this week. We have had so many people offer to have us over, it's wonderful! We were also given a turkey and it's currently cooking in the oven. We got stuff for a huge thanksgiving feast which we'll enjoy together later today. Happy thanksgiving! Be thankful!
Love,
Sister Barnes
Pics
We got Ohio hats
Zone conference
Part of my posterity... I trained sister flora who trained sister Mayhew who trained sister Herrera who I'm follow up training, and sister Mayhew is follow up training sister Jensen. Just missing my other baby Sister Edmunds who I follow up trained last transfer!
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