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

Santee - Week #58 - June 10, 2014

Powerful moments, funny moments. You need both.

Hola familia!

Super buena semana. Filled with all types of moments.

--One of the most powerful moments of my mission: I LOVE THE GONZALEZ-AMBRIZ FAMILY. We had a super powerful lesson about faith and desire. Arturo, the dad, with tears streaming down his face, told us that it's interesting we would talk about this today because it hit him so hard. He said they trust us and know that we and and the church have a lot of power, so they told us about his brother who is in the hospital in Texas. His kidneys are failing him and the doctors don't know why. He's only 31 and he needs all of our prayers.  We offered to send the missionaries in Texas over to the hospital to give a blessing. There were a lot of tears during this lesson but the spirit was so strong, it was insane. At the end, Arturo said the most sincere prayer we'd ever heard. He began to cry as he said that he knows this is the path he should take because the spirit touched him and we keep coming back.  This is ARTURO we're talking about here. ARTURO! I talked about it before, but he was the one totally against having the missionaries over just a couple months ago. Look at him now. The spirit really does change hearts. That miracle will never cease to amaze me.

--One of the funniest moments also happened this week. We were street contacting this lady named Tracy who was part of a Pentecostal church. We talked to her for a minute about the church and our purpose as missionaries and then she had to run. But before she left, we asked her if we could pray with her and she said "oh I'd love to pray for you girls." Guess what happened next? Before we could say or do anything, she ran up to us, put her hands on both of our heads, and started blessing us! In the middle of the street! It took all of our willpower just to keep our laughs to a minimum. What were we supposed to do?! Who knows what people were thinking as they walked by. We got BLESSED by a woman in the street that day. As she was walking away, she yelled out to us, "No fornications! Keep your hearts pure! I'm very pleased with you girls." We love you too, Tracy. Hahahaha.

--Another spiritual moment: Sister Hess and I got to teach part of zone meeting again this week. The spirit was so strong. We were asked to focus on opposition (one of the focuses in mission leadership council). We focused a lot on how we come to know our Savior and become like Him by going through opposition. There were a lot of tears in the room. There were just a lot of tears this week in general. Good tears. Anyway, this principle is something that has helped me a lot through my mission. Remembering that we have the opportunity to become more like the Savior if we allow every opposition, no matter how small, to make us better. With the eternal perspective, opposition makes sense. Without it, it doesn't. So rejoice in opposition and rise!

Les quiero!

Hermana Barnes

Santee - Week #57 - June 3, 2014

Hola familia!

 

I don't have much time to email again so I'll just tell you a couple cool things/miracles really fast.

 

--The Gonzalez-Ambriz family are progressing so well!! We had some miracle lessons with them this week. They opened up to us a lot. The dad, who used to run and hide in his room when the missionaries would come over, finally accepted a baptismal invitation! When we invited him he said yes, and then all the kids were like, "I want to get baptized too! No I want to get baptized! No me first!" So we were like, "Children, children, calm down. You can all get baptized." Hahaha I love this family so stinkin' much. The parents just need to get married. They're getting closer and closer, they just have a few things to work out. I'm pretty sure all your prayers are working. Keep on prayin'!

 

--Had a super awesome Mission Leadership Council yesterday. It was President Clayton's last one before they go home this month. It sad because we're going to miss them, but it was so powerful. He talked a lot about opposition and how Satan is very upset with the good things happening in San Diego and how hard he's working to mess things up before the new mission president arrives. There has been a lot of opposition and hard things that have been happening to missionaries in the mission. When opposition comes, we just need to be prepared to fight back twice as hard and we will always win. We've all learned that the mission is just the beginning of the rest of our lives. It's preparing us to be soldiers in the Lord's army forever. I feel that.

 

I love you. I love this work. Have a wonderful week!

 

Hermana Barnes

 

 

Picture:

1) A group of us missionaries headed to the USS Midway Military ship museum tour down in San Diego on p-day last week. Highly recommended. You boys would be all over that.

Santee - Week #56 - May 27, 2014

MTE Season

Adventure week. It's MTE season. AHH! MTE stands for Missionary Training Exchange/Experience. Meaning: Each zone or a group of zones at a time get a jam-packed training from the mission president in the morning and then they go and apply it like crazy for the next 24 hours with a coach, making each companionship a trio. The AP's, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders are the coaches for all the zone's MTE's. So Sister Hess and I went on loads of exchanges this week! The coolest thing about MTE's is that you see TONS of miracles because everyone is focused on working super hard to apply all the principles learned.

Highlights:

--Got to be a coach down in Ramona!! We saw miracles for dayzzz. A few pictures attached.

--Coaching in City Heights: Went street contacting like crazy for a few hours in Downtown San Diego on Friday to promote the Real Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon musical is coming to San Diego so there are a lot of promotions going on with our mission and the Carlsbad Mission to promote the real Book of Mormon. It's way neat to see the church take the high road.

--Didn't get a ton of time to work in our area this week due to all the MTE exchanges, but it has been really awesome to see that Heavenly Father still took care of our investigators and our area. We were able to get one of our investigators, Lyanne, with a baptismal date! Please pray for her. She has two little kids and is struggling. Her circumstances make it really hard for her to get to church but she has the faith that things will work out if she does what Heavenly Father needs her to do.

Well, I don't have much time to email today, but I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! I have been so grateful to the soliders who fought for our freedom, especially the freedom to be a missionary and just to live the Gospel in general. We are so blessed. Always remember that.

Love you!! 

Hermana Barnes

Pictures:

1) MTE in Ramona with Hermanas Pendleton and Gallagher. LOVE these hermanas. Hna. Gallagher felt a little left out because she's a foot taller than me and Hna. Pendleton... haha. Welcome to beautiful Bandy Canyon, cowboy town. I am still in love with this place.

2) Finally got a picture with the famous Ramona sign!

3) The first two hermanitas gueritas (little white blonde sisters) reunited for a minute! Hermana Hughes and I both got to be coaches down in Ramona. Hermana Aguiar is hilarious.

4) Crazy cool district. The coolest.

Santee - Week #55 - May 20, 2014

Hola familia!

I decided that bullet-point formatted emails are the way to go. None of this extra flowery fluffy stuff. So. Here we go.

--Miracle #1: We went to go contact a Spanish referral the other day. The woman opened the door and kindly invited us in because of the heat. Right as she shut the door, she immediately started slamming us down and telling us that everything we believed in was wrong and that the Book of Mormon was false and all this crazy stuff. She was COMPLETELY anti-Mormon. You could see Satan in her eyes, it was insanely real. We felt like we were on the front line of a battle with the adversary. We calmly testified and got out of there as fast as possible. It's those moments where you realize how strong your testimony and love for the Book of Mormon really is and how much you've been changed on your mission. As we walked away, we both turned to each other and said, "Well, my testimony of the Book of Mormon just SKY-ROCKETED, thank you very much."  Later that day, we had the most powerful lesson about the Book of Mormon to the Gonzalez family who has had a hard time believing in the Book of Mormon. Because we had that experience with the Anti-Mormon lady earlier that day, we were prepared with our geared-up testimonies to be able to speak with the power of the spirit and touch their hearts. It was SO COOL. I love being able to see the detailed preparations Heavenly Fathers places perfectly in our paths every single day.

--Miracle #2: We had a lesson with a member in the branch, Hermana Genesta, who hasn't ever given us a referral before. We sat down and Sister Hess asked her, "If you were a full-time missionary, what would be your favorite thing to teach to everyone?" Then she went off about her conversion story and talked about how she would love to tell everyone how happy she is because of the Gospel. We told her she could share that with anyone and helped her understand the importance of even just inviting, not necessarily teaching. Then she said, "Hermanas, I think I'm going to call my friend and invite her to church now." It was so cool! First referral! A lot of members are afraid to do missionary work because they feel like they need to know everything and do everything the full-time missionaries do. But even just a simple invitation can change someone's world.

--Miracle #3: On Sunday, we did a special musical number in the Mission President's fireside down in Chula Vista. Sister Hess and Elder Dingman sang, with me at the piano. (The words to "There is a Green Hill Far Away" with the music of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" with some different medley mash-ups). A companionship of missionaries serving in Logan Heights brought their investigator to the fireside, and right after the musical number we performed, that investigator turned to the missionaries and said they felt the spirit so strong and that they wanted to be baptized! WHAT?! NO WAY!!! Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is why we have Mission President Firesides. THAT is what music can do. The Spirit is real!  

I love you mucho! Cuidense mucho!

Hermana Barnes

Pictures:

1) Went on an exchange in Calexico again for MTE's (Missionary Training Experience/Exchange) with Sister Jones and Sister Squire! I love those crazy cool sisters. Amazing missionaries right there.

2) Part of the Silva Family in Calexico (Sister Hess' favorite family when she served there).

3) President Clayton doing an object lesson with his Anesthesiology equipment at MTE's. It was probably the coolest object lesson I've ever seen.

Santee - Week #54 - May 13, 2014

Drop and find boys, drop and find.

Hola familia!

It was so good to talk to you all on Mother's Day! Even if it was only a short amount of time, it was great. Is it just me, or is every single person's voice getting lower as time goes on? How low can it go? Sheesh!

Crazy week this week:

--I got to go back to RAMONA this week!!!! We went on exchanges. LOVED it! I had some crazy flashbacks while we were there, but it was super fun to see all the awesome work that has been done since I left. The members are still on fire!

 --Right after the exchange, Sister Hess and I had to rush back and teach part of Zone Meeting again. It went well!

--Then the next day, we went on another exchange in City Heights. I LOVED it as well! It was so fun and different to work in the city for a day because I'm used to small towns like Ramona and Santee. There are people EVERYWHERE so it was fun to meet so many on the streets. It takes all kinds of people to make a world... that's for sure. One of my favorite parts of missionary work is just meeting so many diverse people every day. San Diego is a melting pot. Everyone has their own story, and if you just ask, they usually tell you. I love this culture.

Keep praying for our area and our investigators. We have been dropping a lot of investigators lately and are looking forward to a miraculous-finding week this week. Before my mission, I thought "dropping investigators" was a rare, sad occasion. But in order to find and focus on the most prepared, you need to drop and find, drop and find. If you always prayerfully drop investigators, they will have another opportunity when they're ready to progress, whether it be in this life or in the Spirit World. Heavenly Father prepared all the work we're doing looooong before we got here. So all is well!

The Gonzalez are still doing well, they have been out of town though. They also need your prayers.

I can't believe it's already been a transfer being with Sister Hess with this cool calling. Time is flying by way too fast. I say that every week. A few of the things I've gained a greater testimony of this transfer:

--The mission is just preparing you to be a missionary for the rest of eternity.

--The mission is helping you learn how to really love people.

--Many missionaries fear going home because they're afraid they won't be as close to the spirit as they were on their missions. It's false! If you expect your relationships with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost to be even stronger after your mission, they can be! We have the choice.

I love you! Keep praying for those missionary opportunities!

Hermana Barnes

Picture:

Potato rock mountains. Welcome back to Ramona!