Week 22

I think that this week my comments will be focused on investigators, because we kind of had a rollercoaster week all over the place... Kind of felt like being on Space Mountain, where you can't really see where you're going, but it's still fun...? Hopefully!

 

Rollercoaster #1: Tracy

 

Tracy is a wonderful, wonderful woman. She met with missionaries before, back in the 80s, but then she moved and lost contact. We definitely met her in a miraculous way too: her son stopped us on the street and invited us over, basically. He's not been much interested, but she definitely has been! Well, lessons had been going great with her, and we had a really good lesson on Monday and Thursday. On Thursday, we met at the church, we did a tour of the building, showed her the font, the whole 9 yards. We had a member with us, he bore his testimony, and we set a baptismal date with her! March 9 :)

 

Then... on Saturday, we received a text from Tracy. She said that she was going to be too busy, because her husband has a liver disease and they were planning on going to the hospital in St. Louis, and if he has to go into hospice, he wants to move back to Louisiana. She said that she needed to put this on hold for now.

 

We got that text and it was one of those "Thunk." "NOOoooOOOooo" moments. Super sad. We understand, because it's important for her to be supporting her family right now, and her husband IS very ill. But immediately we were scared that she was totally dropping us, wouldn't meet anymore, was more than just putting us on hold, but not investigating anymore. But we texted back, saying that we understood, and we suggested meeting just once a week. She agreed to that, so we are still meeting with her (thank goodness!). I love this woman, she is definitely one of Heavenly Father's loved daughters.

 

Rollercoaster #2: Edna

 

This name I remembered! But Edna has been hitting a rough patch. We don't really know what's going on with her. Tuesday, we went to her house for our regular appointment, and her daughter answered the door. She said that Edna was in the hospital, having the pins from her foot removed. Long surgery! Then Thursday, we knocked on her door... and no one answered. That was unusual. So, we tried calling... texting... nothing. Saturday, we tried to stop by randomly, and we caught her as she was getting into someone else's car. We pretty much flagged the other car down, and she said she'd be back in a half hour. So we give her an hour to be safe... no answer at the door. So, we're not sure what's going on there, but we're worried.

 

Rollercoaster #3: The Turner Family

 

Okay, I read through old emails, and I couldn't find anything for them. But this is the family that lives with a less active family, a dad and his son and daughter. They are the BEST, oh my goodness, teaching families is so rewarding. Well, on Tuesday, we decided to be bold with them. We invited them to be baptized on March 8. They've been investigating for six or so months now, and we really feel like they are ready. They have accepted the baptismal invitation, but they have been real tentative on setting a date. So, we got a little pushier. They were... noncommittal.

 

Thursday, kind of the same thing. Amazing news though! The dad has been smoke free for more than a week now! AH! Yay! When you haven't gone more than a couple days without cigarettes in 10 years... Wow. We are so, so happy.

 

But we were getting a little worried about setting a date. Let's be real--I was especially interested, because I figure that I'm probably leaving on March 12, and after teaching them for 6 months, I really, really want to be at their baptism. But! It is more important that they make these promises to God at their own time and pace. And we told them that.

 

Then... THEN, on Sunday, they all came to church (yay!) and they were talking to the elders a bit after church, and the son turned to his dad and said, "Is it next Saturday that we're getting baptized?" and the dad replied, "No, it's the next one, March 8."

 

WHAAAAAAAAT? YAY! Haha. We were shocked/super excited! We are definitely going to have to talk to them more on Tuesday, but yayayayayyayayayy hgahahhahahjkladfhaklsdhf that's how we feel :)

 

Rollercoaster #4: Exchanges

 

So, I was SUPPOSED to be heading to Illinois this week, for the first time! And no :( one of the sister training leaders got the flu, so they cancelled our exchange. Instead, they will both be coming to Poplar Bluff tonight, and we'll do the exchange tomorrow, like how they used to do exchanges. Bummer. I was excited to see Illinois. I hear it's flat.

 

Other news:

 

found a new investigator this week! he's very nice, young, seems interested

 

Three investigators came to YM/YW activities Wednesday night!

 

We taught seminary two mornings this week! It was pretty fun. I taught Alma 36, and Sister Reed taught Alma 37. They were definitely more distracted the second day, it was "Feed-Me Friday."

 

Had a ward activity celebrating President's Day and ate jelly beans (Ronald Reagan's favorite). There were spicy ones, so I was happy!

 

I bought some Girl Scout cookies on Saturday. The girls were hilarious. Very good saleswomen.

 

In my personal study this week, I obviously was reading in Alma quite a bit for seminary. I love love love Alma chapter 36. In my opinion, the story of Alma the younger is one of the best stories of repentance that we have in all the scriptures. In this chapter, he is telling the story of his repentance to his oldest son. He begins by explaining that he went about trying to lead people away from the church. An angel came and stopped him, and warned him that if he were to continue on the path of wickedness, he would be destroyed. For three days, Alma suffers the pains of his sins. Then he remembers the words of his father. It says, "Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me... Now behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more... And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!"

 

What a contrast we see with Alma. Before he repented, he wished that his soul could be destroyed so he wouldn't face God. He was frightened and in pain, because he realized the magnitude of his sins. And there are times when we can feel pains like this, when we realize the guilt and the sorrow. But then, through repentance, we can feel joy! We will remember the sins, but we won't have those awful feelings attached. Elder Holland said, "Whatever other prayers we offer, whatever other needs we have, all somehow depends on that plea: 'O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.' He is prepared to offer that mercy. He paid with his very life in order to give it."

 

Shoutouts:

 

Happy birthday Owen!

Congratulations, Chelsea and Taylor! And Keri and McKay, can't believe it's been half a year already

 

I love you all, I think about you all the time. And pray for you lots.

 

No pictures this week, because my camera's battery died, I charged it and then I forgot to put it back in my purse... Oops!

 

Sister Barret

Week 21

Zone Conferences are days when you sit a lot. Tuesday, we sat in the car as we drove up to Cape Girardeau. That's about 1 1/2 hours. Then we sat as we had the meeting. That was 6 hours (plus a little standing/moving during lunch and a couple of trainings). Then, another 1 1/2 hours driving home. Grand total: 9 hours of sitting. And it was really cold again, around single digits. We washed our car and the water froze on it instead of drying off. The exciting part of Zone Conference was that it was combined, our zone + one of the St Louis zones, and I got to see my trainer! Hooray for Sister Richardson :) We caught up on all the things that have happened in the two months since we last talked. The conference itself was focused on the standards of excellence. I walked away from it with resolve to invite more people to baptism. We want to increase our number of people with dates.

 

On Wednesday, we had another meeting! District Meeting. We did Zumba in the morning before, then headed to Dexter. It was a funny meeting this time, we got a little off topic, but it was good for us. We talked about the New Testament. We had some interesting lessons. One of our investigators who has been progressing well towards baptism, Edna, broke her foot. That makes her list of injuries now a knee replacement, pneumonia, a kidney removed, a broken foot, an infection in her broken foot, and other general illnesses. I swear, I don't know what else she could have happen. But she was supposed to get baptized soon, but it's going to have to wait. Then we had a tough lesson with the young mother we've been teaching since last August. She's made a lot of changes in her life, but we feel like she's hit a bit of a stumbling block, and we don't know how to help her overcome it. Then... we had another tough lesson. A new investigator we've been teaching for only about a week was having a really rough time. We spent a couple hours with her, and had the elders come and bless her.

 

Thursday, we got to email! Yay :)  Edna was supposed to have her baptismal interview but she was at the hospital and forgot to cancel with us. We went to the same young woman that we saw on Wednesday and had an okay lesson with her. But then we taught the family that we've been working with (dad, two kids, living with a less active member)! And we had a great lesson. They are coming so close to baptism, it's amazing. I am super excited for them.

 

Sister Reed and I had a wonderful Valentine's Day. We worked all day, then came home and made a very romantic meal, with romantic lighting and romantic music (well, as romantic as you can get when the rules say that you can't have any music with romantic lyrics or overtones. It was piano hymns). Here's what we ate: two types of chicken (Indian and teriyaki), rice, a salad, fresh steamed broccoli, cara cara oranges, and an Asian style soup. To drink, sparkling apple-peach cider. For dessert, homemade brownies. After dinner, we played with the candle wax and made "modern art."

 

I had a very ponder-ful study on Saturday. I read 1 Nephi 15:2: "And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center." This scripture impressed me this time as I read it. After I read it, I thought about the things that I hear, in General Conference, or in missionary trainings, or even the things that I read in the scriptures, that cut ME to the center. It's easy to try and justify away those feelings, or to ignore those feelings. But there are times when I hear something and it cuts me. I feel that sharp guiltiness, because I know that the words are true, and I am not doing them! I sat there and just thought, "what commandments cut me to the center when I hear them?" Then I progressed to, "How can I change, so that I don't feel that way anymore?" Really, a mission is all about change. It's about bringing ourselves into a closer alignment with God's will.

 

To wrap up, a wonderful quote from the seminary lesson that we're going to be teaching next Thursday:

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: “Alma had been touched by the teaching of his father, but it is particularly important that the prophecy he remembered was one regarding ‘the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.’ (Alma 36:17.) That is the name and that is the message that every person must hear. … Whatever other prayers we offer, whatever other needs we have, all somehow depends on that plea: ‘O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me.’ He is prepared to provide that mercy. He paid with his very life in order to give it."

 

Highlights from the upcoming week:

Teaching seminary!

Another round of exchanges... I'm heading to Illinois!

Our ward is having a President's Day Party!

 

I love you all, and I think of you often :)

Week 20 (and 1/2?)

Yep, emailing on a Thursday. How strange. But there was snow Monday, so the college closed (right at 10! It was quite sad), and so we headed to the public library. It was open, but the computer system was down... And usually we would then email on Tuesday, but we had a big long meeting then, and then appointments, then another meeting Wednesday and then appointments... so here we are! Just a couple days late :) Hope no one panicked.

 

Man, remembering the last week feels so long ago! Time to pull out my journal and see what actually happened...

 

Last Tuesday was pretty darn dull. The snow/ice made it difficult, because EVERYONE was cancelling on us! Which was understandable, there was freezing rain in the morning, but we want to go see people! But we got to catch up on some paperwork, so that's definitely a good thing. We were supposed to have a meeting in Cape Girardeau the next day, but the roads were awful, so it was rescheduled.

 

Wednesday was better. It was still pretty chilly, but no snow! Hurrah! And the roads were cleared up mostly by the end of the day. We saw a few people, and tried visiting a lot of people.

 

Thursday, we had our monthly zone meeting. It was up in Cape, and a very nice couple from our ward drove us there. They made some policy changes, including changing the music policy. Mormon Tabernacle Choir only!

 

That night, we went and taught a woman that has been taking lessons from the missionaries on and off for a year or so. We had a really good lesson with her! She knows that the church is true, and she bore testimony to us. Now we just have to help her make the changes that she needs to in order to move forward :)

 

On Friday, I got a couple of packages! Thanks Mom! We also had some good lessons, one with an older member of the ward. She's 80 years old, and she loooooooooooves telling stories. They're usually hilarious! We also taught Edna, and she sadly hurt her foot! I don't know what more she can suffer! Pneumonia, kidney being removed, knee replacement, other general illnesses (flu, cold, etc.), and now a broken foot!

 

Oh my gosh, and we have been making some amazing progress with the family that we teach! The dad and his two kids. They have been coming to church fairly regularly (the kids visit their mom every other weekend), and they have been reading and praying, and they are really on the path to baptism!!! I am so excited for them. I hope that they'll get baptized before I leave, because I'd love to be there, but I'm even ok if I'm not there, as long as it happens! They are the cutest family ever. They live with a family that has been less active for a couple of years, but they've been coming to church as well! It's amazing when you get to see people's lives changing in front of your eyes.

 

Saturday was a great day too! We had members coming with us to lessons, which is always a positive thing. We saw a few people that we haven't had a chance to see in a while, and they went really well. And we found a new investigator!

 

Sunday, people came to church :) a lot of them at least. More could, of course, but that's always the case!

 

I could write about what has happened so far this week, but then I'd have nothing new to write about next time.

 

Spiritual thought time!

 

So, I'm still in 1 Nephi in my personal study (I warned you, I've been moving super slow!). I've learned so much by studying this slowly though, even if I won't finish The Book of Mormon at this pace until 2015. Quality over... speed? I don't know. Anyway, I liked this scripture in 1 Nephi 13. In this chapter, Nephi has been prophesying about the last days and what's going to happen then. A lot of confusion and wickedness, and lost people. But he also prophesies this:

 

"And blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day, for they shall have the gift and the power of the Holy Ghost; and if they endure unto the end they shall be lifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be."

 

So, obviously, my first thought is "Woohoo! Blessings for missionaries! Sweet!" But as I ponder this scripture more, I realize that it's not really just about missionaries. It's about anyone who is doing their best to build the kingdom of God. When we strive to be righteous, to lift the people around us, Christ will lift us at the last day.

 

As far as the publishing peace and tidings of great joy, that's the same thing that the angels sang at Christ's birth! We do this whenever we are sharing about the gospel, whether through our words, actions, example, conversation, countenance, whatever!

 

And then the last part... how beautiful upon the mountains. Whenever I read about mountains in the scriptures, I think of the temples, because they truly are the mountains of the Lord. The righteous who seek to bring forth Zion will be able to enter the temples of God and enjoy the blessings that come from it.

 

Anyway, I love you all! Hopefully the weather will improve here and there! I feel like the grumpy townsfolk in Frosty the Snowman 2 (I know, random reference, but "No more snow!").

 

Sister Barret

Week 19

The snow has returned! Therefore, another short entry this week. Which y'all are probably grateful for, after the monster entry last week :)

I'll be brief.

Monday: We played Whiffle Ball as a district, and I embarrassed myself less than I expected to. Let's just say next time we should play basketball instead!

Tuesday: Woke up sore from playing Whiffle Ball. I should probably exercise better. We had some really good lessons today. We had two lessons where members came, which was great. We love it when we can have members come, and it has been one of Sister Reed's and my goals to involve the members more.

Wednesday: A member in the ward here is a certified Zumba instructor, and she's starting a class, so we went to Zumba this morning! It was a lot of fun. But once again, probably should exercise a little more... Sister Reed and I felt like sore old women when we woke up the next day!

It was transfers on Wednesday, so we didn't have district meeting, which meant that we had extra time in the morning. So, we went and tried to contact less actives. And we met the most anti-Mormon lady I've yet to meet! She's the less active member's wife, and she does NOT like Mormons. But we tried to be very polite. I bore my testimony, and we left before there was too much contention.

Thursday: It was a pretty normal day. Lessons. We did weekly planning today instead of Friday, because on...

Friday: We had District Meeting. Met the new members of the district. Every other companionship in the district got someone new, so we played a "how well do you know your companion" game. Sister Reed and I definitely won. We taught the conspiracy theorist less active member, and had a crazy, crazy lesson at another less active member's home.

But! After the crazy lessons, we had a wonderful lesson where a member family invited one of their friends to dinner and also invited the missionaries. It was great! We read the Living Christ and bore testimony of our Savior.

Saturday: We had a great Saturday. Five lessons, and they went really well.

Ah! Time's running out!  Sister Reed had a cold, very much running nose :)

Sunday: Three investigators came to church: Edna, and two young women. Yay! There was SNOW though after church, so we drove very slooowly home.

Love you all! Missions are the best! Snow's the worst!

Sister Barret  

Week 18

So. The big news this week, of course, is transfers. But we didn't get transfer calls until Saturday, so I'm going to make you read about the rest of my week before revealing the big news. Or you could scroll down a little, either way.

 This week, like every week so far on my mission, has been one full of ups and downs. I guess that's what happens when your days are this busy and this long!

 Last P-Day, we had Family Home Evening with a family from the ward. It's the same couple that we usually have FHE with, but this week, their less active daughter and her nonmember boyfriend/fiancé joined us. It was a lot of fun. The boyfriend had a lot of good questions about the Church. It actually started from us talking about where we're from, and I said, of course, Washington. So he asked me what I thought about legalizing weed. This led into a discussion about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't partake of certain substances, which led to talking about Joseph Smith and prophets and authority and faith and repentance and the Atonement... It was all over the place, but I love answering the questions of people who are actually interested in learning more! I don't think that he is ready to investigate the church, but now he has a greater knowledge of what we believe!

 Also, we had a great game at FHE. Last week, we had a ward party that was a beach party, and we went home with a beach ball. Well, for our game, we wrote gospel topics on each color section of the ball. We passed it around, and when you got the ball, you had to look up a scripture on the first topic that you saw. Basically, a scripture chase sort of thing :)

 Tuesday was an amazingly full day! We taught seven lessons, which is amazing, when you consider that 20 lessons a week is the standard of excellence. We saw Edna for the first time in a while, and it was really difficult, actually. She has been living in a one bedroom house, rented by her granddaughter, and there are ten people living there. It's a rough situation. Well, apparently, last week, when we hadn't seen her, it was because she was trying moving out to Doniphan, but that didn't work out. I don't know what she's going to do.

 In happier news, we found a new investigator! This should interest Lyvia :) He is actually deaf. Now, I know the alphabet in ASL, but that's about it. Luckily, Sister Reed knows ASL pretty well, and there are several members in the ward here who are pretty fluent as well. It's going to be an adventure overall to teach him though.

 Wednesday was our last District Meeting of the transfer. So, in honor of Mean Girls...

On Wednesdays we wear pink! And stripes, I guess.

On our way to District Meeting, we were driving and less than a mile away from the church, we were stopped because a train was passing. So we sit and wait... and the end of the train was in sight, and it starts slowing down... and stops. We call our District Leader, and he says, "Yeah, that train could be there for another half hour." It would have been a way round about detour to drive around, so, to save miles, we parked our car in the gravel next to the road and walked the rest of the way! It was very windy.

 We went to visit a recent convert in Ellsinore, and we taught her inside the shop that she works at. It's called "This N That." I bought Sister Reed a watch there, you can see it in the second photo. It's her first watch on the mission, so I felt privileged to force her to wear one :) It was only 7 dollars too, so cheap!

On Thursday, we had a great day. Oh my gosh. For lunch, we went to the senior government housing with a member. It was only 3.50 for mashed potatoes, turkey and dressing, yams, macaroni salad, rolls, and dessert. Pretty good deal. We were definitely the youngest people in the room by forty years! Then, that night, we had the best dinner I have had yet on my mission. Not necessarily the food. But the entertainment was fantastic. Ok, a young single sister who's going to the local college invited us over for dinner, along with the elders and a young single brother in the ward. Her roommates were there as well. Well, one of the roommates thought that one of the elders was basically the handsomest man she'd seen in a LONG time. It was hilarious. They were introducing themselves, and he said that he's from Utah, and she said, "Oh, you look like you're from Utah." "Uh, I'm not sure if that's a good thing." "Oh, trust me, it's a good thing!" Hahahaha. Poor elder. She flirted with him all night. He did a really good job of dealing with it though.

Friday was a pretty normal day. We did weekly planning, which takes about three hours of sitting down and planning out the week. It's hard to plan the last week of transfers, because you don't know if you're staying or going. Of course, the last two transfers, I was pretty sure I was staying, but this time I wasn't so sure.

 We also did a lot of paperwork on Friday. Missionary work is a lot of paperwork! It's really important though, because it keeps a record of what's been done in your area, what still needs to happen... If you do good paperwork, you'll help out the next missionaries more than you realize!

This is our Unity Scale, to see how unified we are as companions. Right now, we rank ourselves at "Creepy Unified." Not quite up to "Attack of the Clones," but we have talked in unison quite a bit.

Sister Devynne Barret

Week 17

Okey dokey! Hello from Poplar Bluff! In case you're wondering, I'm not apostate (missionary slang for missionaries who are totally disobedient). We received permission to email on Tuesday instead of Monday because libraries were closed yesterday. Happy late Martin Luther King Jr Day!

 I forgot my journal, so I don't know how detailed this email will be, but I'll try my best.

Monday last, we had a dinner at a member's home. They live out in Wappapello, which is one of my new very favorite words to say. Since it's a pretty far drive, they met us halfway and drove us the rest of the way. Well, the parking lot that they chose for us to meet at was a total mud hole, because it had been so rainy the day before. I should have worn my boots. Instead, I was wearing some of my nicer flats, which I then proceeded to lose in the mud. I had to go back and find it, and then they were covered with mud, along with one of my socks. Oops!

 On Tuesday, we had district meeting and President Interviews. He came to Dexter, which was awesome! It saved us 100 miles, so it was really nice of him. While he was interviewing me, I looked down, and he has pictures of the whole district, and over me and my companion he had written "bomb.com." Apparently, Sister Reed had been saying that we were the bomb.com, so he had written it over our names :)

After interviews, we went back to work! We had some appointments, then we went and taught Bible Study. It's a class every week that the elders usually teach, but we taught this time, and it went pretty well. There are only a handful of people that show up each week, so it wasn't exactly a full house. But it was good.

 Wednesday was an AWESOME day at first, which then quickly turned into a really rough day, that then picked up a little at the end.

So.

We had an AMAZING lesson with an older woman, I can't remember if I told you about her before. Let's call her Tracy. She is amazing. Like, probably the goldenest investigator I've had so far on my mission. We have taught her three times as of today, and dang. I can't believe it. She just has been prepared for this! She took lessons from the missionaries in the 80s, then moved to Arkansas and lost contact with them. But we found her because her son stopped Sister Richardson and I on the street and told us to come visit him, but we were really sent there for her at this time! She listens, learns, believes, feels the Spirit, reads The Book of Mormon and understands it... Man, I could go on and on.

Then, later that day, we had a lesson with Abby, the 13 year old girl we've been teaching. That was the rough part of the day. She had a baptismal calendar back in November, but she stopped meeting with us consistently. Then last week she told us that she wanted to get baptized! Then, this week... sigh. She almost dropped us. It was really hard. We think that her mom thinks that we are pressuring her. So, we decided together to slow things down.

We went home and ate mac and cheese and chocolate.

But, good news! One of the young women that we're teaching that is dealing with a lot of things came to the church on Wednesday and met with the bishop! Yay!

So, Wednesday was an emotional day, as you might be able to tell :)

Not much happened on Thursday, except that we had dinner at a member's house and it was kind of intimidating. They're an older couple who just moved in and they're very proper. I had to use the right fork and everything. Sister Reed is used to it, her last area was well-off.

 Friday we found a new investigator! Yay! She's awesome. She's actually a referral from the elders in our area, who were referred to her by the elders in Dexter, who heard about her from some of their investigators.

 Saturday, we drove to Qulin and spent some time teaching our investigator there. She is great. We had some confusion over her phone number, because we had accidentally saved a different person's number as hers because they had the same name.

 Sunday, we had three people come to church! Yay!

So, in my personal study, I've been going a little faster, because I'd like to finish The Book of Mormon in quicker than three years, which is what it would take me if I kept going as slow as I had been.... But I'm in 1 Nephi. So, brief overview: Lehi is a prophet. He has four sons: Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. Lehi is told to take his family and leave Jerusalem. Two of his sons are ok, but the older two, Laman and Lemuel, are angry about this. And they murmur against their father a lot.

Well, as I've been studying this time, I've focused a little on these two. And I was wondering: if your dad  was a prophet, and you see angels, how could you be so angry and rebellious? But I think it boils down to 1 Nephi 2:12: "And thus Laman and Lemuel, being the eldest, did murmur against their father. And they did murmur because they knew not the dealings of that God who had created them." Laman and Lemuel didn't understand God. They didn't understand how God worked! They didn't respect Lehi as a prophet, because they didn't realize that God had given him authority. They didn't believe that they could get the plates from Laban, because they didn't understand that God is more powerful than any man here on earth. Later, they don't understand the vision of the tree of life, because they didn't understand that God teaches through symbolism. They don't understand the mysteries of God. Why? Because they didn't choose to seek it out! Nephi takes initiative. He goes and prays and asks God to help him understand! Then Sam listens to Nephi! But Laman and Lemuel don't pray for themselves, they won't listen to their father or their brother. They prefer to not understand.

 So, let's all try a little harder to understand God! It's going to make it a lot easier for us to deal with the things that he sends our way.  

Love you all! I'm having a great time here in Poplar Bluff with Sister Reed. I can't believe transfer calls are this Saturday! I'll update you on Monday. I might be leaving Poplar Bluff!

Sister Devynne Barret