Team BAWS Still Going Strong!

Hey Everyone!!

This week was good, even though a lot of people decided to cancel on us :( That was sad..but hey the work is still going strong!

Oh...and then church was cancelled yesterday. That was sad.

Buuuut...we found out that myself and Sister Haws will both be staying in Greenfield together for another transfer!! This will be our third transfer together. We decided to come up with a team name.. Team Baws (Barrett + Haws = BAWS) Hahaha 

We did have a really good lesson with Jose this week. He just had surgery so he was in a lot of pain. But he told us he prayed, and he knows he needs to come to church. We were SO happy to hear that he got an answer to his prayers. But as you know we didn't have church. We are SO hoping that the weather will get better so that he'll be able to FINALLY come to church! He also told us he has started drinking Herbal Tea instead of coffee. He was like "I replaced coffee with tea', and I was thinking "Oh no..he doesn't understand', so then I asked him what kind f tea he's drinking and he was like "Peach". Hahaha he understands! He has made so many changes in his life. It's incredible to see!

We had a lesson with Steven that same day, and we started off by reviewing what we talked about last week, which was the restoration.. Just as the member we brought with us started to bear her testimony on the power of the Priesthood he says "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I can't do this right now...I'm going through a lot right now and I'm not in the mood to talk about the Lord so can you guys just leave? I'll call you when I'm ready.." So we're like okay.. and just as we're leaving he's like "Goodbye Sister Barrett"......no one else.. So yeah that was pretty uncomfortable. That whole experience was so awkward, but we laughed about it afterwards. He'll call when he's ready..but myself and Sister Haws probably won't be here anymore..

We had dinner with a family in Vermont this week. They're a part member family (The Young's). We LOVE them! It was awesome, and they make the BEST food! Also we challenged them both to do different acts of service within the church. So Allison, the Mom, who's not a member, we challenged her to sing with me in church! We're going to talk to the Branch President about it this week and set up a week that we can do it! And Brother Young is going to give out a Book of Mormon to someone. They are both really excited, and we are hoping this will help them get to church :) 

This week for p-day Sister Hung taught us how to make sushi! It was DELICIOUS!

My sushi!

On Saturday we helped to do some service with a few of the members in the Branch. It was really fun. We got some good laughs out of it. The members we were with are both recent converts, Brian and Holly. So it was cool to see them both having such a good time serving. I always feel so amazing when I'm serving others :)

Our Branch President is finally back from China. It's good to have him back. I don't know if I ever even mentioned that he was in China for over a month...but he was! We all had a nice talk last night about having some more activities that we can bring our Investigators and other people to. This transfer is gonna be a good one! We're excited to see the work progress!!

Weather update! It didn't really snow that much this week, it's just piled up over the weeks. It's nearly up to my hips now!

I hope you all have an amazing week!

I love you all :)

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

"Many are cold ..."

Hey everyone! 

It's been another amazing week here in Greenfield!

We had interviews with President Packard this week and it was really amazing! We did it a little differently this time. We had interviews as a companionship so myself and Sister Haws were talking to him together. He told us that he's thinking of keeping us together for a 3rd transfer because the work is going really well in Greenfield and we get along so well, but he said he has to take it to the Lord first. So we're not getting our hopes up. The Lord might have something different planned for us!

But interviews were great! President Packard gave us some amazing ideas on how to work better with part member families, and how to work better with our branch leaders. It was amazing to get his advice on things. He really is so inspired! :)

So on Wednesday I was on exchanges with Sister Lewis, and that was SO fun as always! She came to Greenfield with me this time. It was the greatest! :P We saw one of our investigators Brendan. He has been investigating the church for a bajillion years!...okay well it's been 3, but still that's a LONG time! We decided to be straight up with him this time and talk about baptism. He told us that other missionaries have talked to him about baptism before, and they've even set dates for him to be baptised, but he wasn't comfortable with that. We went through the baptismal interview questions with him, and he was perfect with most of them! He told us that he wants us to start going over the lessons with him again! So that's a good sign! It's the furthest we've gotten with him so this is great! :D

On exchanges with Sister Lewis ... yep, I still make the most attractive faces ever!

On Wednesday we had a really great lesson with our investigator Keith! One of the Sister Missionaries that served here a while ago texted us on Tuesday night and said that she was praying, and she had a thought about Keith, and she felt like she needed to invite him to be baptised.  We thought that was awesome so we said she could call in during our lesson with him. So we started off our lesson talking about how he has such great faith and how he just needs to act on that, and take a leap of faith. He asked "how do I act on it? How do I take that leap of faith? What leap of faith do I need to take?" And just when we started talking about that, the phone rang and it was Sister Smith! He was really excited to hear from her, and she was SUPER bold with him. which was good. She just told him about her prayer, and she said "Keith, you need to be baptised!" We were like "WOAH!" She was so awesome! She was even like "Do you think Joseph and Hyrum Smith would die for this and lead 15 million people astray?" And he he said "No of course not." And then she said "Do the Caputo's love you? Do the Sisters love you??" and he said "Yes of course" and then she was like "Do you think they'd lie to you?" And he said "No never!" So then she went on to say that all the things we teach him are true, and we would never lead him astray because we know these things are true and we just want him to have this gospel in his life. He appreciated everything she said, but he didn't agree to be baptised any time soon. We did go through all of the baptismal interview questions with him though! We've been having a lot of success doing that this week! It was great that we got to do that with him because we now know what's holding him back so we know what we need to help him with :)

So as I'm sure you've all heard, the weather has been a bit insane here! Boston did get a blizzard, but thankfully it didn't really hit our part of the state. We did get a lot of snow, and it's absolutely FREEEEZING here, but  there was no blizzard! 

On Saturday night we had to be in our apartments by 6pm because of the weather so that was kinda crazy, but hey, it just makes life more exciting when these things happen! :P

A car buried under the snow ... I told you we got a lot!

We even got red dotted on a Sunday! We were allowed to go to church (if we had church) but other than that we had to stay in our apartments. Thankfully, we did have church this week, although 90% of the mission didn't, so it was a huge blessing to be able to attend church and partake of the sacrament.

But we're staying warm and staying safe so there's no need to worry! I'll leave you all with the wise words of President Packard: "Many are cold, but few are frozen."

I love you all! Hope you have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

The Snow Can't Stop The Greenfield Sistahs!!

Hey everyone!

I just want you all to know how much I love you! Myself and Sister Haws walked for 30 minutes in a BLIZZARD so we could email our friends and family today! We're not allowed to drive in the crazy snowstorms! So here I am :) These pictures will give you an idea of the weather ...

This is a lake! It's completely frozen over, and it's been snowed on like a bajillion times! If we stood on it ... that would be totally fine. We saw people skating on it one day! It was really cool

HUGE Icicles!!

But this week was AMAZING!! Like seriously INCREDIBLE!!

First of all, last Monday we went out to shovel some snow around our neighbourhood, because you know...we're all about that life. We saw a woman across the street shoveling snow by herself, so we went over to her and asked her if she wanted some help. She agreed to let us help her, and then we got talking. We told her we're missionaries for the church, and she was like "Ohh wow! That's nice! So do you want to convert me??" We were like "Well....." Haha so we talked to her a little bit more about the church, and she thought it was really interesting, and she even said "I feel like I have strong beliefs..but I don't know now. Maybe you were sent here to me for a reason." We were like "WOAH!!!" So we got her contact details and she said she'd love to meet with us, and when she told us her name she introduced herself to us as "Sister Lambert". So basically she's ready to be baptised right now! Haha no..but she is a new investigator so that's awesome!!

Then on Tuesday another really cool thing happened. We went to visit a recent convert Hailey who is the only member in her family...and she's 11 years old. We prepared to teach her one of the new member lessons, so we started teaching "The Restoration", and her Grandpa was in the room. He participated in the lesson, and we gave him a Book of Mormon. He said he really wants to read it, and we set up an appointment to see him again this week! He is ANOTHER new investigator!!

Later on that day we went to an AWESOME family's house for dinner! The Caputo's are legit one of the coolest family's I have ever met! They're the family that had us over for Christmas. Well anyway, dinner was wonderful. But when we were leaving, I was putting my boots back on and the zip BROKE! It was really unfortunate..

Then on Wednesday I just went throughout the day with a broken boot and it was really annoying so I was like "Well...I'm gonna have to get some new boots tomorrow." And I was just planning on getting some cheapy ones in Walmart or something. Later on that day we got a bunch of texts and calls from the Caputo's. They were all trying to contact us, and find out where we were at so they could meet up with us. We were like "We're a half hour from your house right now :/" But they were like "Okay we're on our way there now! We NEED to see you today!" So we were kinda freaked out..we were like "What is happening??? Why do they need to see us today?? Are they going to prank us?? Are they bringing us food?? WHAT IS HAPPENING??" So then we met up with them at the church, and they ALL got out of the car and just stood in front of us. Then they were like "We have something for you." And we were like "You do??" So then Charity (their daughter who's like 15)  takes this box from behind her back, and she's like "We got you some boots because yours broke yesterday." It was SO sweet! They bought me these ADORABLE boots, and they were the right size and everything....plus they got Sister Haws some socks so she didn't feel left out :P haha

Oh also! On Wednesday we saw Jose and he's doing really well! He's going to replace drinking coffee with herbal tea! He's so awesome! He was supposed to come to church yesterday too...but church was cancelled..yeah. The weather is THAT insane.

There was some Winter festival going on in Greenfield this weekend so there was random ice sculptures around town. This one is of Anna from "Frozen"!!

Olaf!

On Friday we had an amazing Zone meeting that got us SUPER pumped, and our whole Zone is just sprinting and working harder than ever before! We also threw a surprise birthday party for one of our Sister Training Leaders, Sister Hung..she's from Hong Kong! But yeah it was fun! Our zone is amazing!

Saturday was INCREDIBLE!! We taught half a lesson to one of our new investigators, Steven. Then we extended a baptismal date...and HE ACCEPTED! He's getting baptised on March 15th! We're so excited! He said a beautiful prayer at the end of the lesson. He said in his prayer "Thank you for this opportunity I have to be baptised. I've been waiting a long time for this." It was amazing!

Then on Saturday evening, we had dinner in a members home. His name is Doug! He's so awesome! He invited his friend, Leo over to be taught by us. We brought Anne, one of the less active women we're working with. We had a lovely dinner, and then we taught Leo about the Plan of Salvation. He just took it ALL in and he had some great questions. Doug bore a powerful testimony about The Atonement, and at the end when we invited Leo to pray to know if all the things we taught him were true, Anne bore her testimony on the power of prayer! It was beautiful! I almost cried! The whole lesson was just AMAZING! Myself and Sister Haws could not stop talking about it afterwards!

So yesterday was weird. Church was cancelled because of the snow, but the message clearly didn't get to everyone because some people still turned up for church! Because we had enough priesthood holders, we got the "go ahead" and we were able to still have sacrament meeting with 13 PEOPLE!!! Yes....13!!! So there was a small crowd, but it was actually amazing. It was fast and testimony Sunday because we had Stake Conference last week, and people bore some really amazing testimonies :) It was a blessing to be there among such amazing people :)

I love this blessed land of Greenfield! I love the work! I love the Massachusetts Boston mission! I love being a missionary! It is incredible :)

Aren't we precious?

I love you all!

Stay strong and stay safe

Love

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Blizzard!!!!

Hey everyone!

This week has been an incredible one! Lot's of great things happening in Greenfield!

We've had a couple of Red dot days this week...including today. We've been walking everywhere because we're not allowed to drive. The snow is INSANE! It's up to my knees...and I'm not that short!! But I love the snow! It's freezing and it slows us down...but it's so pretty!!

Yep, up to my knees.

We even had a snowball fight last P-day with our Zone which was really funny. Our Zone is so awesome!!

So we had Stake Conference this weekend, and it was incredible! President and Sister Packard came to speak at it, and they were just amazing as usual. Their talks blew everyone away. Especially President Packard's because he gets so passionate and animated when he speaks. They really pumped up the whole Stake to use the missionaries and work with us, and it was AMAZING to see that people took immediate action!

We had tons of people from the branch come up to us afterwards and invite us over to their homes to teach their friends! We have a ton of appointments this week with people who told their friends about us, and invited us over for dinner with their friends!! We also had a family in the branch (who are AWESOME) come up to us and tell us that they want to have us over with some of our investigators and have a lesson in their home! So that's happening this week too! We are SO excited! Amazing things are happening!

Another great thing that happened this week is that Jose set a baptismal date!! He's getting baptised on the 8th of March! He is still a little hesitant, but he knows it's the right thing to do. And he did set the date! We are excited for him. He has come a long way, and he's making big changes in his life, so that he can better follow Jesus Christ.

We had an amazing lesson this week with a less active member, Anne. We felt like we should share with her the importance of bearing testimony. We shared our own personal testimonies with her. We know she has a testimony of the gospel, but sometimes she just forgets about how good living the gospel makes her feel. And she doesn't act on the testimony that she does have. But we know ourselves how bearing our testimonies strengthens them, so after we bore or testimonies to her, we invited her to bear her own testimony in testimony meeting next week (it's next week because it was Stake Conference this week). She took on our challenge so we are really excited for this. We know that as she bears testimony of the restored gospel, she will feel it in her heart, and her testimony will grow.

Well everyone, I hope you all have an amazing week! :)

Selfie!

Stay strong and stay safe!

I love you all! :)

Sister Rebekah Barrett