Amazing Week!

Hey everyone!!!

This week has been amazing!!!!

First off.. We invited our investigator Jose to be baptized. We extended a date (March 8th)! It was Sister Haws first time extending a date to someone. The spirit was SO strong, and then we had a member with us who was baptized a few years ago, and she just bore her testimony to him, and told him he would not regret this decision. It just goes to show how much of a difference it makes to have members with us in every lesson. He said he really wants to say yes, but he needs to pray about it first. So Jose is currently praying about a baptism date on March 8th. We are so excited!!! He is so ready. He keeps telling us he loves the way he feels when we visit, and he wants to follow the example of Jesus Christ, but he just needs to take that leap of faith!

That was a good day, but that's not all that happened this week. We got a text to say that someone had requested a bible, so we went to bring it to her at her house, but she wasn't there. But we met this guy, Steven, who was very interested in what we were doing. So we started talking, gave him a Book of Mormon, and then he invited us in right then and there to teach him more. We were like "wait what?" Haha it was so awesome. We're meeting with him again this week! New investigator!!! 

Another awesome thing that happened...there's an awesome woman, Kelly, that comes out with us like 3 times a week. She only just moved in to the branch recently. She lived here years ago, and she just moved back. We were having dinner with her this week. We didn't realise the time, and we had another appointment at 8. It was about 7:55 and we were like "Oh no we have to go!" And Kelly was like "Oh that's fine! Who are you going to see?" So we told her we were going to see a less active member, Brenda. She got all excited, and she was like "I know her! She knew me when I was a teenager! I haven't seen her in years!" So we asked if she wanted to come with us, and she DID. When we got there they were both SO Happy to see each other we didn't even get through all of our lesson, because they were just reminiscing, and catching up with each other. It was great! We were glad we were able to reunite them! 

So on Thursday we had the full time digital missionaries come to our church, and help us be a little more productive as online missionaries. It was awesome. We were able to Skype with two people, and now we are on fire! There are so many people who are ready to hear about the gospel, and the Lord is just waiting for us to step up, and do our part!

So one day when we came home, there was a poster attached to our door, so we opened it up and it's super weird. For a while we didn't know who gave it to us..but then later on this week some old man pulls up in the parking lot outside our apartment and he's like "Did you like the poster?" so we re like "Ohhh it was you!" So he told us that he loves art, and he saw this poster and thought it would be perfect for us....it's a poster of a cat sleeping on a bible beside a fish swimming in a bowl, and the words at the bottom of the poster say "He will quiet you with his love."......WHAT?!?!?! It was actually really funny!

Our lovely poster!

On Sunday, we talked a lot about Holly, one of our recent converts who hasn't been coming to church, and how we could help her, because she won't ever talk to us, or let us in her house. We would continue to call her, and stop by to see her, but were seeing no success. So no one really knew what to do. Later, that evening Holly called us! After like a month of not being able to get in contact with her! She just told us how she really misses the church, and everyone there, and she knows that's where she belongs. We were SO happy!! Persistence really does pay off :) 

It was such an amazing week! So many amazing things are happening here, and the Lord is hastening his work :)

Snow!

I love you all!

Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Welcome to Zion!

Hey everyone!!

This week has been incredible! SO MANY MIRACLES!

First of all, we lost our phone at the beginning of the week and it was MAYHEM! Not having a phone as a missionary is the worst thing ever! We searched high and low! We checked our car, the church, the apartment, a members home...it was nowhere!!! So we ended up emailing the Sister Training Leaders and telling them about it. They said they'd order us a new phone..we totally gave up hope of finding it..but we still prayed hard that we would!

So we had to go to do a service project in a place near the member's home that we checked for our phone, but when we went to the place to do service...there was nobody there. So we both just said "well there must be a reason we're here!" So we went to the member's home again, and we started searching in the snow outside their house!! Then they came out of their house, and were like "What are you doing?? Let us help you!" So they got their shovels and started shoveling through the snow to find our phone. But we thought it would be pointless to do that if it wasn't there, so we have the phone hooked up to our Bluetooth in the car, so if someone calls us, it comes in through the radio...okay that's really hard to explain, but I'm sure you all understand. We got someone to call our phone to see if it was around that area, and it worked! So we knew our phone was somewhere around there in the snow! We found it after like 2 minutes of searching, but it had been in the snow for 2 nights and 2 days, so we thought it wouldn't work...but it did!!! BLESSINGS!

The snowflakes on our car this week!

Something AWESOME that happened in the MBM this week. One of the Elders that went home this week took a little detour before going home. He flew to Scotland to baptise somebody he had been teaching in the digital mission!! He was in Dundee! The MBM and the Scotland/Ireland mission came together this week! Beautiful!

Oh! Also..we went to the store to get something during the week and I heard a VERY familiar accent! Two guys were talking to each other, and one of them was Irish! I was so excited! I said to him "Hey! Are you from Ireland?!" and he was like "Yes I am! How did you know??" So I told him I'm from Ireland, and I'm here as a missionary for my church. His friend that he was with said he was from Liverpool, so I was like "MY MOM WAS BORN IN LIVERPOOL!" It was a very exciting time clearly! Unfortunately they had absolutely no interest in the gospel, but we planted the seed!

We picked up some Cadbury's Creme Eggs at Walmart!

We had a miracle happen this week! So, Joanna, our recent convert is living in a new place now and she's all settled in..after disappearing for 2 weeks. We planned to teach her a new member lesson on Saturday with her kids, and usually having lessons with them is chaos because the kids are always fighting and it's just really loud, and it's hard to have the spirit there. But this time it was totally different! Another one of our recent converts, Brian has been helping her out with her kids all this week and they have transformed! During the lesson they listened, and they asked questions, and they answered questions and it was amazing! Brian told us that he doesn't spend time with them without teaching them something valuable about the gospel. It's amazing to see our recent converts work together and strengthen each other! They're helping each other to progress, and it's amazing :)

This week I hit my six month mark and Sister Haws insisted I take a picture to mark the occasion!

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week! :)

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Lovin' It Here in Greenfield!

"Hey everyone!!

Hope you've all had an awesome week!

This week was SO great here! First of all...it's snowing like CRAZY right now! It's so fun!

The snow on the church grounds

The temperature has been waaaay lower, but it's freezing! It's -13 degrees Celcius!

So on Tuesday, President Packard announced that we'd be having a Zone conference... 2 days later!!! It was unexpected, but it was incredible. We talked about the mission goals for the upcoming year, and HUGE things are happening here. We're working harder than we've ever worked, and making sacrifices in our lives to truly consecrate ourselves.

Well, we got the dreaded T-texts this week...aaaaaaand I'm staying here in Greenfield with Sister Haws. No changes this time! WOO! I'm so excited to have another transfer here with Sister Haws. I seriously love it here, and I love having Sister Haws as my companion. She teaches me so much :)

The Springfield aka "Zion" zone!

We had a funny experience this week...

So we went to have dinner at this awesome couple's home this week. Their names are Dave and Linda, and they're an older couple. They're not members, we do community service with them every Thursday so that's how they know us. They invite us over for dinner every Tuesday, but we haven't been able to come a few times, and the last time we had a dinner appointment with them, we were on exchanges so I wasn't there. But this time I was there, and Linda was particularly excited. She had something all planned out. She must have been waiting for this moment for ages. So we sat down to have dinner, and she got up and said "Hold on a minute, I just want to put on some music." So she puts on some music, and I was like "I know this song". She was blaring "Ireland's Call". It's her favourite song apparently, and she was so delighted that she got to play it for me!

So I hit my 6 month mark this Thursday. It's crazy to think that I only have a year left here. 18 months really is a short space of time. I'm loving every minute of my mission, and I wouldn't have my life any other way. I LOVE THE GOSPEL!

Hope you all have an amazing week!

I love you all :)

Sister Rebekah Barrett"

If you want to write to Sister Barrett just contact me or her mom on Facebook for her flat address, or you can always send letters to the mission home. Please remember that Sister Barrett cannot talk to friends or family on Facebook but you can always email her at her ldsmail account! Thank you as always for your love and support.

Awesome, Awesome AWESOOOOME!

Hey everyone!

So this week was...awesome!!

I hope you all had a great New Years Eve! Ours was fabulous! We came home at 6pm (that was our curfew), and we watched some "Preach My Gospel" DVD's. If you haven't seen "The District", it's a MUST see! We also did some crocheting. It's a hobby I've picked up recently. We're making scarves. They're lovely! I know...I'm such a granny. But it's fun..seriously!

This is us crocheting on New Years Eve ... we look so unhappy in this photo but I promise we're excited!

A miracle that's happening here is that people in the Branch are more willing to come out with us and help us. They recognise that we really do need them and we can't do the work without the members. The members are SO important!! We are experiencing wonderful miracles every day!

Another amazing miracle is that our investigator, Gary, came to church with his girlfriend on Sunday. She's a member. He told us at the end of church, that he wants to get baptised!! He has a lot of things that he needs to work on before he can get there, but the desire is there, and we're going to help him through everything! We are so excited for him!

Another miracle...one of our recent converts, Joanna, had been missing for the past 2 weeks. Nobody could get in contact with her and she was NEVER home. We were all really worried about her. On Saturday we got a call and it was Joanna! She was staying with her parents in a town that's not in our area. Good news is that she's safe. She is struggling a lot though, so we got the Elders in the Springfield ward to visit her, which they did. They shared an uplifting message with her, and they even brought someone with them who was willing to help her out with ANYTHING! She is in good hands there, and we're so glad she's safe.

We found this beautiful place on our travels this week!

I hope you all had an amazing week, and are looking forward to the week ahead! I know I am!

I love you all <3

Sister Rebekah Barrett