Santee - Week #51 - Apr 22, 2014

Easter miracles

Hola familia!

I'm glad to hear you all had a wonderful Easter! We had a great Easter here as well. Guess what I got to do? Give a talk in sacrament meeting! Wahoo! Haha the topic was 2 Nephi 2:8-9 about the importance to make the Atonement known to the inhabitants of the Earth so it was a good topic to testify and invite like crazy. During the meeting, my extremely talented companion, Sister Hess, and another missionary, Elder Dingman, sang a duet while I played the piano so we had a pretty busy Easter Sacrament Meeting. They have incredible voices and the spirit was super strong. We ate some Mexican soup at a members' house for lunch and then the rest of the day was just a normal proselyting day. I have never felt the Spirit of Easter so strong in my life, so it's definitely an Easter I will never forget... just like the rest of the holidays as a missionary. The best way to celebrate that Jesus Christ lives is by testifying of Him to the world as one of His representatives!

We had a super cool miracle with the Gonzalez family this week. I think I've talked about them the past couple emails, but their progress is incredible! They're the family that didn't want much to do with the church at all and now they're on fire! Last Friday, we had a powerful lesson about receiving guidance and personal revelation, and at the end of the lesson, the dad (who was usually the first to run and hide when the missionaries would come) said, "I've been praying for my kids to be able to learn about God and you hermanas just keep coming back." Wow. Piercing spiritual moment right there. And then the mom invited us to come to their house the very next day for dinner and then dinner the next week without us even asking. The 4 kids LOVE it when we come now and they're all well-behaved and raise their hands to ask questions throughout the whole lesson. WHAT?! It's an Easter Miracle! I wish you could understand the whole extent of this miracle. Please pray for them!

Something we have been thinking about and learning a lot about lately is the attitude of gratitude and the attitude of miracles. We have been super focused lately on getting miracles because of the huge loss of our area and investigators. It's amazing to see that when you have that attitude and expectation of miracles, you WILL see them. Sometimes you have to search, but they are always there. When you have that attitude of gratitude, you see even more. Every morning before we leave the house, we say, "Alright, let's go get some miracles!" I love this work. I'm never coming home.

Love you!

Hermana Barnes

Pictures:
1) Awkward candid companionship.
2) Demasiado amor