Santee - Week #65 - July 29, 2014

CHANGE

Hola familia!

Wasn't I was just barely at the computer writing to you? Sheesh, the time is slipping right from under my fingers. AHHH!! Make it stop! My companion, Hermana Hess, goes home in exactly a week. I am going to miss her so much. These past three transfers we've had together have been crazy awesome. We have seen so many awesome miracles worked here in Santee.

People have been asking us this a lot lately (and then Hermana Hess gave a talk on it): "Why are missionaries so happy?" Because they have front row seats to the biggest miracle of all--Watching the Atonement change people. That's why I'm constantly excited and talking about the Gonzalez-Ambriz family. They are constantly changing and it is incredible. Watching people change, no matter how small the changes are, makes me so happy. The Atonement is real.

I love what Elder Solis' said in his general email: "When you're a missionary, you feel like Superman (or Superwoman) every single day. You have an unrestricted desire to find those who are suffering and who are praying to come closer to Christ. You literally wake up and think to yourself, "Whose life can I change today? Whose life can I change by providing them with loving service? Whose life can I change with my beautiful smile?"

There's that 'change' word again. Change brings happiness! Go make someone happy today! Love you!

Hermana Barnes

Las fotos:

1) We went back in time about 200 years at the Mormon Batallion! We finally got to take the Gonzalez-Ambriz (minus Arturo) and they LOVED it.

2) Just look at that temple.

3) Now take a look at that lil' miss sassy pants in the front. She reminds me so much of Madi. This is la familia Buenrostro, super solid members in the branch who have been members for less than a year. The mom, Berta, is on the left of me and is one of our progressing investigators. Keep praying for her!

4) District picture at the temple

Santee - Week #64 - July 22, 2014

Montañas de exchanges, Music fiasco, Innocent children.

Hola familia!

 

Crazy week. We don't have much time because we are headed to the temple today! Wahoo! But I'll give you a quick glimpse of the week:

 

--We went on montañas de exchanges this week! It was awesome. I'm about to collapse. First one in City Heights, then one in Calexico in 115 degree weather, and then one here in Santee with another sister from City Heights. I love those sisters.

 

--It has been a week of musical numbers! Sister Hess and I did a special musical number at a baptism on Saturday, a special musical number in Sacrament meeting the next day, and then we did two musical numbers at the Mission President's Fireside that night. People are probably tired of us! Haha. I love music. It touches people's hearts with the Spirit in such a powerful way that many other things do not.

 

--The Gonzalez-Ambriz are reading the Book of Mormon together! One of the simple joys of missionary work is when you see a dysfunctional, non-member family gathered together around the dinner table reading the Book of Mormon together and actually enjoying it. Beautiful scene. 

 

--Another simple joy is the innocent questions of a 9-year-old. Here's a quick story: We were talking about avoiding temptations of Satan with the Gonzalez and lil' 9-year-old Arturo was like, "What age does Satan start having power over you?" And we asked him what he thought and he then turned to his 12-year-old sister, Shayla, and asked in a most innocent voice, "Shayla, when did I start becoming like you?" Hahaha. Shayla became slightly offended at the question as we all tried to keep our histerical laughter to a minimum. I love innocent children.

 

--Elena and Berta are progressing super well! They love church and are working through their doubts about baptism. Pray for them as well!

 

Keep being good! I love you!

 

Hermana Barnes

 

P.S. I'm doing a 40-day fast thing from writing anyone but family so if you don't hear from me, just know that I still love you.

 

Las Fotos:

1) Old Town on P-day with some missionary friends.

2) Mexico border. How easy do you think it would be to climb that 40-foot fence?

3) I love these Calexican sisters. We meet again. The sister on the left is Hermana Squire from my MTC district who's from American Fork near Pleasant Grove just 5 minutes away from us. She's the best!

Santee - Week #63 - July 15, 2014

World Cup, Interviews, Primary praise, purpose.

Hola familia!

Good news: The World Cup is OVER!! Which means people will finally start answering their doors! We've been trying to make our message more important than the World Cup, but we only succeeded half the time. Welcome to almost Mexico.

Interviews with President: It was the most different President's interview I've had. Because he is brand new, we basically had a mini Mission Leadership Council in our lil' interview as we talked about my input for transfers, which sisters should train and which sisters should become the next sister training leaders because two are leaving this transfer. He is getting input from the leadership in the mission because this upcoming transfer is going to be a big one. It has been neat to go from an experienced Mission President to a brand new one who has had to depend on the missionary leadership. Also, President Schmitt told me to tell my parents thanks for your sacrifice in sending your amazing daughter on a mission ;)

We were asked to help out in sharing time in Primary as "Special Guest Baptism Experts" on the "Good News Network Primary News report" haha. The kids LOVED it. We were celebrities for 15 minutes as they all shot up their hands to ask questions. I've realized that teachers and leaders have to get creative sometimes to compete with technology and facebook. We failed with the World Cup, but succeeded in Sharing Time. Ahhh yeah.

Cool miracle: We street contacted and added a solid guy named Fabian who then helped us find a referral who we ended up adding as well! 2 miracles in 10 minutes! 

Update on Gonzalez-Ambriz: They are still doing well. Mayra wasn't able to make it to church, but Arturo (the dad) brought the kids by himself for the first time on Sunday! Before, if Mayra wasn't able to make it, no one would come. So it's progress! Your prayers are still working!

Well, I sure love ya. I love the challenge made by your ward missionaries to pray about specific people on the ward directory for missionary and service opportunities. Our missionary purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ so whether people are members or non-members, we can always invite them to come more unto Christ. Thanks for your examples of Christ-like service. Les quiero mucho!

Hermana Barnes

Las fotos:

1) My district at the pier at Ocean Beach. Some of us weren't quite ready for the picture. Haha.

Santee - Week #62 - July 8, 2014

New Mission President has arrived! 

Happy late 4th of July! I hope you had a wonderful day. There weren't a lot of people home here on that day, and then all the missionaries had to be home before 7 p.m. to keep safe from the partying and drunk drivers on the road. It definitely didn't feel like a holiday, but it's all good. I'd say a great way to celebrate our freedom and our country is by sharing the Gospel!

Our new Mission President, President Schmitt, has arrived! We had a 'Meet the President' meeting with him and then we had Mission Leadership Council. Although he's brand new, he knows how to get things done. He is going to be great for the mission. He is very young, and his four kids with ages ranging from 6 yrs. to 14 yrs. will be staying the whole 3 years. They are an awesome family! He's a lawyer and his wife's a doctor (who also a Spanish-speaking mission in California). Can you imagine the future of their children? Sheesh.

Update on the Gonzalez-Ambriz: They're doing super well! Here's a cool miracle: Mayra (the mom) was supposed to work this past Sunday and was really bummed because she's been praying for ways to get Sundays off. Then she looked at the schedule again later on and someone had switched her days without telling her so that she could come to church! She was like, "Hermanas, it was a miracle!" She was so excited. How cool is that?! They keep praying that they will be able to have Sundays off and Heavenly Father keeps answering. Also, every week they are more and more open to marriage. At the beginning of this all, they basically said "NEVER" to marriage and now look how far they've come. Please pray that they will have the desire to get married sooner than later. They are so close! The kids are such good examples to them.

Sometimes, your investigators get deported to Mexico. Two of some of our really cool investigators just got deported! We were so sad. They are going to get in contact with the missionaries down there. It's a good thing the church is true wherever you are, right?

Sister Hess and I taught part of Zone Meeting again (meetings we have with the whole zone once a month) and we taught about effective planning and raising our faith and expectations. When we put our trust in God's timing and planning, we will realize that He already has miracles planned. We can't make our own miracles happen, so we might as well do everything God's way. When we skip an hour of studies in the morning because we want to go out and teach more peple, we're not doing things God's way. When we hesitate to pray because we want to put off receiving an answer we're afraid to receive, we're just putting off the miracles He already has planned. Doing things God's way and being exactly obedient brings the exact miracles you need. There's a lil' spiritual thought for the day haha. Love you!  

Hermana Barnes

Santee - Week #61 - July 1, 2014

Be prepared to find the prepared!

Hola familia!

 

We had a cool spiritual prompting experience a few days ago. We had an awkward amount of time left before a branch activity, so we decided to say a quick prayer to know how to use the time wisely. The idea of "go find someone" popped into our minds but we didn't know where. We decided to start driving and all of a sudden another idea of, "try that family you met a couple weeks ago that wasn't interested" popped into our heads. So we pulled into their trailer park, knocked on their door, and they were completely open to learning from the missionaries! We were able to add them as new investigators. It was cool to see how Heavenly Father prepares people for specific times and He will guide you to them if you just ask with faith. Is it really that simple? Yesssss.

 

We were running around town for morning exercise yesterday, and we ran into the cutest lil' hispanic lady named Ortancia Morales. She was so excited to find out that we were missionaries and we were able to teach her a mini gospel lesson right there on the street in our workout clothes. Haha it was the coolest lesson. She told us she wants the missionaries to come teach her and her whole family! So cool. Whether it's 6:45 a.m. in your workout clothes, or prime proselyting time at 6:45 p.m., there are people to find. People are prepared these days people!

 

I love you!

Hermana Barnes

 

Pictures:

1) Saying goodbye to Elder Martin Solis at the branch activity. He's off to the MTC today. He's going to tear it up!

Santee - Week #60 - June 24, 2014

Sometimes you have to break into cars so that others can keep the commandments.

Hola familia!

Saturday night, we got a call from the Gonzalez family asking if we knew how to break into cars because they locked the keys in the car. Immediately I thought to myself, "I am so grateful to my Dad who taught me at such a young age how to break into cars." So we replied with a resounding "YES!" and were off to the rescue. We got to their house and they said, "Hermanas, we really want to go to church tomorrow but we need to be able to drive our car." Okay, no pressure. After just a few minutes of struggling to get the wire hanger into the door, the blissful "Dink!" sound of the door becoming unlocked began a choir of angels singing. Haha the awesome part of it all is that we had just had a super powerful lesson with 1 Nephi 3:7 the night before about how the Lord will provide a way for them to go to church every Sunday if they had the faith to talk to their bosses. So it was a perfect object lesson--Satan tries to get you to "lock your keys in your car" but we have been given the tools (faith, prayer, wire hangers, etc.) to "break into our car" if we really have the desire and the faith to keep the commandments. I'm a cheese ball. But anyway, THEY CAME TO CHURCH!! Thank you, my wonderful father, for teaching me how to break into cars so that others could keep the commandments.

The changes this family are making are unreal. We'll have lessons where we bring up more of the things they need to do, and they basically say, "Oh yeah, we've been talking about that and we're already trying to make it happen." So cool. They are progressing so well but the adversary is working hard. I know I say this every week, but please keep praying for them!

I went on the coolest exchange in City Heights this week with Sister DeAngelo. I love going on exchanges because there are always loads of miracles because they are always expected. We just need to expect miracles to happen every day and they will. The last lesson of the night, we taught a family where the mom was pretty against the church but her heart was softened after her daughters were baptized two weeks ago. She accepted a baptismal date that night of the exchange!! It was one the most spiritual lessons I've ever had and coolest miracles I've seen on an exchange.

Well, thank you so much for all the love. I love you back. Go be a blessing in someone else's life today!

Les amo,

Hermana Barnes

Las fotos:

1) The family (Margarita, Karen, Abby) from City Heights.

2) A confirmation that I listened to what my parents taught me.

Santee - Week #59 - June 17, 2014

Trial of Faith

Hola familia!

Awesome week!

Last Thursday was one of the coolest exchanges I have been on. Sister Hofer who is serving in Poway came down to Santee with me. We were able to have 4 member-present lessons and add 5 new investigators in one day! We got down to business! It was a huge blessing and something our area needed. Sister Hofer has only been out for about a transfer, but she did so well! Heavenly Father really does work miracles through all of us, no matter how long we've been out.

Not a lot of people were home in general this past week, which was a little discouraging. But we kept working! It was a trial of our faith, and the miracles definitely came. Just yesterday, we contacted a referral from a member and she accepted a baptismal date right on the spot! She is so incredibly prepared. We really need to continue to work on getting referrals from members--the members know what they're doing!

Gonzalez-Ambriz family is doing well! We didn't get to see them much because they've been in and out of town again but Pablo Ambriz is out of the hospital! Thank you so much for your prayers! Keep praying for them!

On Sunday, the newly called Elder Kacher from the Quorum of the Seventy came to our Stake Conference. It was awesome! He brought some major power to that conference. Later that night, it was President and Sister Clayton's last Mission President's Fireside. It was so powerful. Sister Hess and I got to perform in the very last musical number. Do you like how I often tell you how cool and powerful things are and then not give you details? Haha time is just slipping out from under my fingers.

I will tell you this though. One of the most important things I've come to realize is that it all comes down to two things:
1. Your personal relationship and love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
2. Your commitment to become like Them.

Everything we do and are-- every desire, every intention, every act of service-- should be rooted because of those two things. We get to make that decision. I have to go but I love you!

Hermana Barnes