Week 57: We've Been Walking

A lot.

Anyway, we've been walking a lot because we've been tracting, street contacting, and contacting our little hearts out! This area doesn't have very many investigators, so we're doing out best to find the people that the Lord is preparing to receive the restored gospel. It's fun stuff. And good exercise! And who doesn't like a little sunshine?

It's actually been beautiful this past week, which is definitely a plus when you're talking about tracting.

Let's see... This week felt like it went by way fast, but then again, I look back and Tuesday feels like it was forever ago!

So, Tuesday, Sister Auble and I went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. I went with Sister Firestone, who was trained by Sister Reed! We had a blast. We had a crazy busy day, and it was so much fun going out and contacting and visiting people. Plus, she had just been down in Poplar Bluff, so I was able to quiz her down on who she had visited.

Wednesday, we had our zone leader training, which was also a lot of fun. I love meetings like this, because they really rejuvenate you and help you to feel the Spirit. And help you to know what to focus on and how to set goals! The program our zone leaders introduced is a "Staircase to the Perfect Day" as I call it. Week 1: Focus on getting up and exercising well. Week 2: Have a super effective personal study. Week 3: Have a super effective comp study. Week 4: Get out of the apartment on time and stay out for the time you're supposed to. This is week 1, and I've already definitely seen positive effects spread to the rest of our day.

After that? Finding! Contacting! Visiting less active members! We found a new investigator, Mary. She's just a wee bit crazy, but she seemed interested in reading with us! 

We've seen some really great miracles, though. Even when it seems like nothing exciting is happening, you'll get to talk to someone who says, "Yeah, maybe I'm interested!" or "Sure, you can stop by again!" Little miracles, but they definitely help.

In my personal study, and just in my day to day life, I've really been reflecting on the talk "Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence," by Elder Jorg Klebingat. I jotted down on a notecard the six ways to increase your confidence before God, and I keep it in my planner so I can reference it:

1. Take responsibility for your own spiritual well-being. 2. Take responsibility for your own physical well-being. 3. Embrace voluntary, wholehearted obedience as part of your life. 4. Become really, really good at repenting thoroughly and quickly. 5. Become really, really good at forgiving. 6. Accept trials, setbacks, and “surprises” as part of your mortal experience. 

I think I've talked about this talk before, but it really stood out to me as something that I could work on. This week, I've focused on my physical well-being, with the challenge to really exercise well. Yay! Exercise! It's fun :) But the one I like the most, and the one that I'm going to really try to work on, is embracing obedience. It's not enough to begrudgingly do what you're told. It's all about your attitude!

​We organized our supplies and discovered that we had a ridiculous amount of everything...

​Having a hairdresser for a companion has definitely increased my adventurousness with my hair...

Lots of love to everyone!

Sister Barret

Week 56: I Ate an Eyeball

​Made of cake.

Anyway, as you may have noticed from this last picture, I also did something crazy, and allowed Sister Auble to color and cut my hair. ​Yep. It's different alright. I told Sister Auble she had free rein, and she sure took it. It's fun though, I figured it was time I was a little adventurous.... and she really didn't give me an option ;)

Highlight of the week was probably that we found two new investigators this week! Two men, actually, which is a little unusual for me. Usually I teach women. But hey, I'm not going to argue with new investigators! 

The branch president and branch mission leader here are excellent. They know exactly whom they want us to focus on, and how we can best use our time. I've never had such an engaged mission leader. It's great.

There were some really cool, random run ins this week with people that hopefully will move forward. One of our new investigators actually was driving past us in a parking lot as we were getting into our car, and rolled down his window and asked us, "Hey, where are you guys from? What are you doing?" And we were able to explain our purpose and why we were in the area. Another time, we were walking with the elders in the branch on our way to contact people, and we ran into a woman on the street who had had elders help her with stuff when she was a young single mother, and we had a great discussion about seeking truth and the Book of Mormon.

But really, I had an amazing spiritual experience this week. I had been dealing with some feelings of discouragement, and they were really weighing me down. Preach My Gospel warns against discouragement: "You should not, however, become discouraged; discouragement will weaken your faith. If you lower your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease, your desire will weaken, and you will have greater difficulty following the Spirit." Well, knowing and doing are different things, as we all know. But I was trying to stay motivated, and be happy. But Sunday, I decided that I wanted to ask one of the elders in the branch for a priesthood blessing. And it was incredible. It was literally like I had given the elder a list of my concerns, and he went down the list and addressed each one. With the actual words I used. Except he had no clue about any of them; Heavenly Father did. The power of the priesthood is so real! And blessings can really bring that counsel and peace that you need. I wish I could adequately describe how comforted I felt afterwards.

Columbia is a great town, there's a lot of potential and work to do here, and it's going to be awesome! 

Pray for missionary opportunities.

Lots of love,

Sister Barret

Week 55: Some Highlights...

What a busy busy week. It was one of those weeks when P-day to P-day feels a lot longer than a week. Part of that may be that it was actually longer than a week. But hey, who's counting?

I don't even know where to start. I almost want to go backwards in time, it's been so exciting the last few days. But I'll restrain myself. 

Tuesday: We saw some of the most amazing people in Paris before I headed out. 

The photos here are mostly from transfer meeting on Wednesday, some past and current companions :) Sister Edgel, Sister Richardson, Sister Reed (who finished her mission! She was going on a mission tour and stopped in at transfers), and Sister Auble.

Transfer meeting was great Wednesday. Then got to go to my area, Columbia. It's very pretty, lots of trees changing colors. I got to unpack and get to know the area a little. 

The members here are great! Very welcoming. They take care of us :)

The highlights of the week were definitely stake conference and mission conference. Yep, lots of conferences in a row! Stake conference, we got to hear from two members of the Seventy, Elder Deschler and Elder Sitati, because the O'Fallon IL Stake was getting a new stake president. 

Saturday was all about hastening the work, especially through the use of social media. Everyone was challenged to share the "Because of Him" video on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Sunday was the announcement of the new stake president. It was amazing to see all the stake sustain the new president. He was way young, and people kept commenting on how despite his youth, they know that this was the Lord's choice.

Then! Monday! All 240+ missionaries in the Missouri St Louis mission gathered together for an amazing, spiritual mission conference. We heard from President and Sister Morgan, Elder and Sister Sitati, and from the other members of our mission presidency. The messages were awesome. Elder Sitati counseled us on the Atonement, on following the Spirit, and being a great missionary. Sister Sitati kind of emphasized how relationships here on the mission help us to learn how to have good relationships in the future. I liked her counsel on after you have a disagreement, bear your testimonies to each other.

The surprise of the conference? President Morgan got a copy of "Meet the Mormons" and let us watch it! Us missionaries were so excited, we all cheered. The movie was so good! The stories were all uplifting and you could definitely feel the Spirit. It's cliche, but seriously. I laughed, I cried, I felt the Spirit... Haha. I think I wasn't expecting it to be so funny, but it was! I would recommend it for sure.

Anyway, I am running out of things to say. It was so much fun to see all the missionaries. The socializing was intense :)

I've started the Book of Mormon again, and this time I am focusing on studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love marking the effects the Atonement can have on us (the strength, peace, and forgiveness that flows into our lives).

Lots of love to everyone,

Sister Barret

Week 54: It's Been a Happy-Sad Week

​This week was Carol's baptism, and it was amazing. She was so ready for this.  Her husband was less active, but because she's been coming to church, so has he. And really, the miracles that have happened. They are some of the sweetest, most service oriented people I've ever met, and I have no doubt that they will do wonders. I'm so grateful that I had the blessing, the privilege to be here in Paris. 

The baptismal service was lovely. Fifty members of the branch came! Which was really a witness to me that miracles do happen! It was in between Conference sessions on Sunday. 

And General Conference was a huge highlight too! Wow. Saturday especially stood out to me, where every talk seemed to answer my questions. I wish I could have the whole Conference printed out already so I could review it! Oh well, I'll just have to read my notes :)

Of course, like I said at the top, there's also been the sad parts of this week. We struggled with finding new investigators, we had to drop several investigators, and some of our investigators didn't keep some very important commitments. But that's the balancing act of missionary work. There will always been highlights and lowlights, daily it seems. When you're participating in the work of salvation, I guess that shouldn't be a surprise.

Dude! Family! I am on the Meet the Mormon film website, and it's coming to Vancouver! You have to go see it! Or at least Lyvia, take one of your friends with you and go see it! I'm so jealous. It looks awesome! (Meetthemormons.com for more details!)

Sorry about that sidenote! Haha. 

Another sad part is that Sister Edgel and I's time together (I know, my grammar is :P but we went to seminary this morning, so I'm sleepy) is coming to an end. 

I'm heading to Columbia, Illinois! Funny story time... so one of the confusing things about Missouri and Illinois is that there are several places that are in both states... Springfield IL and MO, there's more but I'm forgetting, COLUMBIA... so when we got transfer calls, I asked which area I was actually going to, because Columbia is the name of a zone, a city in MO with three+ sets of missionaries, and a city in IL. No one knew. But I found out last night that it is actually Illinois, haha. My new companion is Sister Auble.

Should be fun!

I'll definitely miss Paris though. I'll miss this branch. What I really admire is that the people here really are family. The branch supports and lifts one another. Everyone pitches in to help with events or other things. The parade? Group effort. The baptism? So much support from the branch. They're really amazing. I'll miss these people!

I hope you all enjoyed Conference also! Prayer works, miracles happen, and missionary work is so rewarding. 

Also, before I forget again: Next week we're having a mission conference with Elder Satati of the Seventy, so we won't be emailing on MONDAY but Tuesday, because the conference is an all day thing on Monday.

Lots of love! Have a great week!

Devynne

Week 53: Don't Rain on Our Parade!

Good news: It didn't! And we were in a parade, and it was awesome.

Also, I tried to take more photos this week, so:

​So during Honeybee Festival, we may have eaten not the best... the first was a funnel cake, and the second is fried cookie dough. DELICIOUS, by the way.

​

Us making bees out of balloons for the float, and waiting for Carol to finish her interview! It went great, she's set for baptism on the fifth! YAY!

​A picture of our float! It was so cute, the little kids all dressed up like honeybees... Our baskets have cards that had the church address, our phone number, and the six "Be's" on them, plus a little "Bit-O-Honey" candy. The elders are from Effingham, they had to come up to interview Carol, so then they came and helped pass out cards during the parade. Enjoy our color coordination :)

I'll leave off there. It was so much fun! We gave away ~1250 cards, and the image of the church, hopefully, was very positive! How many missionaries get to say that they walked in a parade on their mission? I'm pretty sure not that many! 

Between the parade and preparing Carol for her baptismal interview, it's been a pretty crazy week! And it's not looking to slow down any-- next week is General Conference, then her baptism (yay!) and then after that--transfers! And then in Paris, there'll be a big hayride, but it's the 11th... so I probably won't be here for that :( Which stinks, but what can you do?

The General Women's Meeting was awesome! I loved the emphasis on temples. It's tough not getting to go to the temple, but it's definitely helping me to appreciate them more! Also, cool experience with the broadcast: I like having questions before a session begins, so that I can look for answers. Well, Saturday was a busy day, so I kind of forgot... So I jotted down two questions right as the session began. Well, the first two talks answered my first question, the third talk answered my second question, and President Uchtdorf's talk answered the questions I didn't even know that I had! It was a great session, I enjoyed all the talks. And the little girls from Korea singing were super cute. Oh my goodness.

Hope you all have a great General Conference week! Lots of love!

Sister Barret

Week 52: A Year of P-Days

Being a missionary, man. I'm telling you. It's awesome. It's definitely strange... we were talking to some other sisters, who've been out for maybe 5 months and 7 months. And they told us that last P-Day they drove to Champaign with some members to go to the mall, because they "wanted to do something normal." And I thought, "What's not normal about a normal P-day?" That's how I know I've been a missionary for some time.

I think this week I will quote from my journal:

Monday:

"Grocery shopping. We went to Save-A-Lot. I did save a lot, but mostly because they didn't have the stuff I wanted. Like delicious Halloween pumpkins. Then home. For whatever reason, I felt like I had a lot of time this P-Day. I wrote letters, worked out some, packed up some stuff... I even cleaned! The ant tub." Which for the record is much less ant-y this week! Yay.

Tuesday: 

"I also fasted today for the zone goal of 50 baptismal dates by the end of the transfer, and my stomach was so growly. It was kind of ridiculous.... We contacted a member referral in Kansas (small town). And it was awesome! She seems super interested in coming to church and learning more and getting baptized! Hopefully. Soon. Haha." 

Wednesday: 

"We did service at the food pantry in the morning. Always fun. There were some kids in FFA and their teacher who came and helped, which kind of lightened the load on us. The teacher was way young... It was a slow day after that... Basically nothing went through. We got stood up twice, by a now-former investigator. Got told "not now" by a couple more investigators... We also agreed to help prepare the handouts for the Honeybee Festival. [Have I mentioned I'm going to be in a parade this Saturday? Woot woot! The branch is doing a float in the parade for this festival.] To save on miles, we biked to the church. Bad idea. Not only did it get super painful (never realize how many hills there are until you have to bike up them) but also, the ONE time it rained all day today was as we were biking there. Too funny."

Thursday:

"Between the two sisters' cats, I had a bad allergic reaction. My right eye got very red, very itchy and puffy. My throat felt terrible and I was sniffling and sneezing... embarrassing. We were having dinner with one of the members and I was basically crying through it. But we helped her wrap Christmas presents for her grandkids."

​

Friday:

"After weekly planning, we met with Tina! Which went well--we set a baptismal date--yay! We set it for November 22. We think... we know she needs some time. The good news is that she wants it! I had another allergic reaction to those darn cats! ... We were driving across Main St and a parade totally comes along! With cheerleaders, the band, and homecoming floats. Random parades--small town moments! The high school homecoming game is tonight, and we can hear the cheering and the band and stuff. Hopefully, they at least score some points this game. They were scoreless in their first three. Ouch!" [They won!]

Saturday:

"I am just a mosquito magnet. I am going to be so grateful for winter--who cares about the snow and ice? The bugs will be dead! I won't be able to count five or six new bug bits in the morning! Seriously, I'm pretty sure the only reason that I haven't got West Nile yet is because I'm a missionary. Slow day though. We tracted at 11 and had a cool experience. So we tracted near our house because we're low on miles. And we met some of our neighbors, who were very friendly. We were debating whether to head back for lunch at one point or to knock more doors. We decided to tract, and the very next door we knocked, the woman was pretty interested! Unfortunately, she lives in Terre Haute... But she wants to come to church!"

Sunday:

"The Primary program was so darn cute!!! One of the kids pulled a loose string from his pants, and that kept him entertained for about twenty minutes :) We set up our investigator's baptismal program, super exciting!"

​Wearing out shoes in the service of God :) These were pretty cheap shoes, but still!

I set a goal to take more pictures this week, so I'll try to do better! (Sorry Mom!)

In my personal study, I've started on Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel, and I've been reviewing the Christlike Attributes one by one. If there's one chapter of PMG that I would say applies equally to non-missionaries and missionaries (Okay, I'd have a hard time picking just one), this would be it. I studied "Hope" today, and the thing that really stood out to me is that hope comes as we have an abiding trust that God will fulfill his promises to us, which allow us to hope for eternal life... And when do we make promises with God? When we make covenants! Covenants are so essential, because we obtain the blessings we desire from God through our covenants. They give us hope. I've definitely been reflecting on temple covenants over the last week, and I am so grateful for the temple!

Hope everyone is getting stoked for General Conference!

Love

Sister Barret

Week 51: Happy One Year to Me!

And Happy Birthday to Lyvia. Happy 18th! You're an adult! 

...when did that happen?

It was a busy week! And I have been wearing sweaters! That is because it got down to about 40 degrees two nights this week! BRR what is that nonsense? It's only half-way through September!

​

Plague update: We have an ant infestation. Okay, the reason they got so bad is that we put down some bait. They've been dying off since then, but it's still an ongoing battle. More updates to come later.

Okay. What didn't happen this week? It was a good week. Big thing is that Matt and Carol came to church again this week, which makes three weeks in a row... and three is the big number in church attendance. An investigator needs to attend church 3 times before baptism! And Carol is so excited about her baptism, which is definitely contagious. It looks like we're actually going to be having it October 5, and hopefully get the whole branch involved.

We found three new investigators this week, but actually two of them were while I was on exchanges. I traveled to Springfield IL this week! Fun fun fun! It is always fun to go on exchanges, to see how different areas are and how different missionaries do the work. After all, I've only had three areas and seven companions, I don't know how it all works! Everyone does missionary work differently! 

Thursday was the day exchanges started, but it was also president interviews and district meeting... where I had to give a training. Everything at once much? It was good though. I had a good interview, Sister Edgel had a good interview, and I think my training went well. We talked in my training about what it means to be obedient. I kicked off with this scripture, talking about the prophet Lehi:

"And it came to pass that he was obedient unto the word of the Lord, wherefore he did as the Lord commanded him." 

Now, I think it's significant that it doesn't say "He did what the Lord commanded, wherefore he was obedient." No, he was obedient first. So obedience is more than just a label for someone who does as they're told. It's a characteristic, an attribute. And we also talked about what it really means to serve with all your "heart, might, mind and strength" (D&C 4). It's easier, sometimes, to give your might and strength, but hold back your heart and mind. We think that somehow it's enough to act but keep our hearts and minds not all the way in. But really, obedience is about submitting our WHOLE selves to Heavenly Father's will.

Other than that... I don't know. I left my journal at home, so I don't know exactly what all happened this week :P Sorry! It was a good week!

Getting pumped for General Conference!

Love,

Sister Barret