Happy Easter!

Hey everyone!

This week was wonderful, as always!

First of all, this wonderful video, "Because He Lives", came out this week! If you haven't seen it..watch it right now! Easter is coming up this Sunday and it is so important for all of us to remember the Saviour and what He did for each of us! Find out more at http://www.mormon.org/easter

Also you should all check out our mission website! Massachusetts Boston Mission It's AWESOME! There's some crazy pictures up there, and lots of great information!

So anyway...our week!

This week we went to a dinner appointment with the Roberts family. They're a really awesome family in our branch. Sister Roberts is from Bolivia! She makes the most incredible food! Get ready for this...we had lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, and a special peanut sauce! You're probably all thinking..."that sounds disgusting", but it's AMAZING!! I don't know what she puts in that special peanut sauce, but it's incredible and we COULD NOT stop talking about it. Apparently it has some special spice in it that you can only get in South America...

So on Wednesday we had such an amazing day! So..back up just a little bit. Last week at Branch Conference one of the members brought her friend, Amanda, to church. We talked to her a little bit, and gave her a Book of Mormon, and a Restoration pamphlet. Well, on Wednesday morning during studies, we got a call from Amanda telling us that she read the pamphlet, and the Introduction to the Book of Mormon, and that she wanted to meet with us! I asked her how she felt as she was reading them, and she said that her whole experience with reading, and with coming to church was just amazing and she was just overcome with..."something". It was so amazing! So we met with her on Friday, and we taught her about the Restoration in more detail and invited her to come to the General Women's Broadcast on Saturday evening, and we invited her to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true. She came to the Women's broadcast, she came to church yesterday, and she started reading the Book of Mormon! Also, we're meeting with her again this week so we shall see what happens!!!

Another thing that happened on Wednesday...we had to run into CVS pharmacy really quick to get something, and when we came out, we witnessed a mini car crash. A little old lady in her car scratched the side of someone else's car. The poor old lady was SO shaken up about it so we decided to help her out. We went back into CVS with her to try to find the person who owned the car. She was so shaken up that all she could say was "I was just coming to pick up a prescription!" We found the woman who owned the car, and the little old lady was just like "I was just coming to pick up a prescription!" The poor woman couldn't say anything else! She kept repeating herself!  We felt so bad for her. She was adorable. Eventually it all worked out for her, and she was really grateful for our help :)

ANOTHER thing that happened on Wednesday is that we had some really great lessons with our investigators. We met with Brendan, and we talked about the Restoration of the Gospel, and how Joseph Smith prayed to know which church is true. Then we talked about prayer, and if you want to know if something is right, you have to ask God. We talked about asking God is this is the true church on the earth today. He was like 'Hmm...I've never asked God is this church is true! Nobody ever asked me to do that. I never even thought of doing that! Every set of missionaries always asked me to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true, but they never asked me to pray to know if the church is true!" So we invited him to do that! People get their answers in different ways. We're excited to see what happens with this :)

We also saw Jose and we talked about CPR...Church, prayer and reading. We talked about how important it is to attend church, pray every day, and study the scriptures every day. We talked about how CPR in "everyday' terms is used to save lives, and CPR in spiritual terms also saves lives! It keeps you spiritually strong!! The lesson obviously affected him because he came to church AGAIN this Sunday! These are such exciting times!!

We also met with a new investigator, Porter. I'll be honest.. the first time we met him I was a bit scared, but turns out he is really great, and really interested in learning more about the gospel :) Lesson learned.. never judge a book by it's cover.

On Saturday we watched the General Women's Broadcast, which was amazing!  If you didn't see it..I'll just tell you something cool about it! One of the Sisters gave an analogy two soda cans. If the can is empty you can easily crush it, but if it's full it is not so easy. In relation to the Gospel we all need to FILL our lives with the Spirit, and the gospel truth. I love it!!

We wore matching clothes to the broadcast!

My highlight of church this week was Doug bearing his testimony! He bore a beautiful testimony about how everything happens in Gods timing, and he was away from the church for 30 years, but has learned that this gospel is the only way of finding true happiness. It was amazing!

Our district looking lovely!

Aaaaand we're a bunch of weirdos

I hope you all had an incredible week, and that the week to come is even better!!

I love you all :)

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

The Greenfield Family

Hey Everyone!!!!

I hope you all had a great Paddy's day and a great week overall!

We definitely did!

Last Monday we had a St. Patrick's Day P-day where we all wore green and we had a treasure hunt where the prize at the end was gold chocolate coins! :P It was really fun. We also ate pancakes and bacon for lunch...not very Irish, but it was delicious.

All ready for our Paddy's p-day!

Tuesday was the day itself. I wasn't expecting it to be anything special because I'm in Greenfield which is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, but people made it special :) We had a WebEx first thing in the morning. If you don't know what a WebEx is, it's like a conference call thing where President and Sister Packard can talk to everyone in the mission and give us all the announcements and updates, and then we read the Book of Mormon with President Packard. So it's really awesome! But this week's one was a little different! The Packards started off talking about St. Patrick's Day and how it came about, and then they talked about St. Patrick's Day in Boston because it's SO big there, and then they talked about...me! It was hilarious!

Then later on we went to Dave and Linda's for a special St. Patrick's Day dinner. Linda had her favourite Irish music playing as always. Ireland's Call on repeat. It was amazing. We had corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots for dinner..classic! It was actually delicious! Yes that's right...I actually enjoyed cabbage! I had it so much this week, but it was actually really good! It's amazing how missions can really change you...not only spiritually, but with your taste in food! :P

Irish and American flags flying together!

Later on we went to help one of the members, Doug, with is family history. We were preparing him to go to the temple on Saturday. He has been a member for 38 years and has never been to the temple because he went inactive shortly after he was baptised, and he was reactivated just last year! So it was a really special time for him. Well, we went to his house with Kelly, and we started helping him to get more names to the temple, and we realised that we have no idea how to do family history. We're terrible at it! So we ended up having to call the number for help with Family Search and we talked to this lovely old lady in Salt Lake City who talked us through everything. It was embarrassing that we offered to help him with his family history and we don't even have a clue how to do it. How awkward! I NEED to learn!

On Wednesday we went to dinner at President Kemsley's house, our Branch President. But we ended up eating at his school! He and his wife own a school for Chinese students, where he helps them to learn English. It's really cool! We had delicious authentic Chinese food for dinner, and then we got a tour of 'Kemsley Academy'. It's awesome!!

We saw this on the way to President  Kemsley's house!

On Thursday we had a scary experience! We went to the church at around 8:15 at night because we had to print out something from the computer. Well, when we got there, there was a light on in one of the rooms. We got really scared and thought there was some creeper in the building so we just sat outside in the car, and didn't go in. We called Brian because he doesn't live far from the church, so he came and checked it out for us. He went into the church, and we were just outside literally thinking of every possible bad thing that could happen, and we were planning our escape route, buuut then he came out and told us that someone must have left the light on when they were cleaning.....fail. So there were no creepers thankfully.

On Friday we had an awesome lesson with Jose! We were just super straightforward with him and told him that he NEEDS to come to church! Well it worked because HE CAME ON SUNDAY! It was his first time EVER in church! Kelly brought him, and she said he was so nervous at first! Bless him! He told us that he really enjoyed church and the talks and everything! We're going to see him this Wednesday so we're SUPER excited!

Saturday was probably one of the best days of my whole mission. We got to go to the temple with 4 recent converts, plus Doug, plus Kelly because she's just awesome! There were too many of us to all go in a car so we had to take a bus to the temple! President Kemsley has buses because of his school so we used one of them, and off we went! It was so amazing! The highlight was definitely being there with Doug as he went to the temple for the first time EVER, and did work for his Dad and his Grandfather. It was such a special day. Also, President Packard was the one baptizing everyone so it was even more special! That was definitely the highlight of this week! :) Also just being there with all of the amazing people that I've come to love here in Greenfield. This really is an amazing place with amazing people who I'll always hold close to my heart.

On Saturday night when we came home we walked into our bedroom and there was a weird crack in the wall and a big bubble at the end of it! REALLY hard to explain. I have pictures. Anyways we were looking at it to try to figure out how it happened, so I put my hand on the wall, and some weird smelling liquid came out of the bubble! SO GROSS! We made some calls and we were told that there was water behind the wall, and it'll be getting fixed sometime this week, but for now, we have to move our beds into a different room. So, we spent our Saturday night moving our beds into the living room :P It was an interesting experience ...

The weird crack in our wall

Moving our beds!

Our beds cramped into the sitting room!

Sunday was Branch Conference and it was really great to see SO MANY people in the little Greenfield chapel! Something that kept coming up throughout the day was the fact that the Greenfield Branch has grown so much in unity, and we're a family. This is what we've really been praying for lately, and it really is so amazing to see the members working together and working so well with us. We want nothing more than to unify this branch. We can always do more, we can always be better. This branch had definitely become more unified since we first got here, but there's always room for growth! We are always praying for unity and Zion here in Greenfield! We know we can all achieve this!

A beautiful New England sunset

I love this place SO much! Missions are the best!

I love you all, and I hope you all have an amazing week! :)

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Hey everyone!

I hope you're all excited for Paddy's Day! It'll be weird not being in Ireland for it this year, but hey, the work must go on! Oh! And speaking of work...people have to work here on St. Patrick's day! HA! No days off school or work. Laaaaaame!

Haha anyways, I hope you all had an amazing week! We certainly did! 

We went on exchanges this week. I went to North Brookfield with Sister Williams, and Sister Hung came to Greenfield to work with Sister Haws. Sister Haws always has to exchange with Sister Hung, and I always have to go with the American companions because myself and Sister Hung, are both foreign, and we can't drive here haha! The exchange started off pretty exciting. It was about 8:30pm. I got in the car with Sister Williams, and we were on our way to North Brookfield...and then I realised that I had the phone. I had the GREENFIELD phone! So we had to turn around and see if we could catch up with them to give them back the phone. It was like a car chase..really exciting stuff :P We did find them eventually and gave them back the phone. Thankfully we didn't have to go too far to find them. We thought we were all going back to Greenfield that night!

Exchanges were awesome though! I enjoyed my day in North Brookfield with Sister Williams. It was cool being with Sister Williams because we were in the MTC together so it was really amazing to see how we've both grown since then :)

Sister Haws and Sister Hung had a really eventful exchange! They did some awesome Digital mission work. They told us ALL about it! They Skyped this guy from Colombia, and they taught him the first lesson, and he was really receptive!  Then they asked him if he'd like a copy of the Book of Mormon, and he said YES! So they got his address, and they found out the number of the Branch President in that area. They called the Branch President, so that they could get the missionaries number. Unfortunately, he only spoke Spanish, so that was awkward. They ended up getting one of the Spanish missionaries in the mission to call and get the number for them.

Then the next day, when I was back in Greenfield, we called the missionaries...Once again THEY ONLY SPOKE SPANISH! So...yes I took Spanish in school for 6 years...no I do not remember a lot of it. I tried, I really did. I got out a few a few sentences, but then we couldn't understand anything they were saying to us! So then they started saying numbers so we were like "Oh.. we should write this down" Then they say "Americano" So were like "Oh! Awesome! It's the number for some American person! Let's call them!" So we called the number. Turns out, it was their Mission President!  So, we talked to the Mission President in the Colombia Baranquilla Mission. We told him everything and he said he would take care of it. ALLELUIA!!

So something really cool about this week...so whenever it's somebody's birthday in the mission, Sister Packard sends out a birthday text to everyone in the mission so that everyone can wish them a Happy Birthday. It always has a little bio about the person who's birthday it is so that everyone can get to know them a bit better. So this week it was Sister Bernard's birthday. She's one of the Senior missionaries in Norwich. She said the sweetest thing in her birthday text. It said :"Sister Bernard has a special connection with Sister Barrett because she knew her Dad many years ago when he served as a young missionary in New England." It was so awesome! I love The Bernards!

On Friday we had our first Branch Activity in FOREVER! The last Branch activity was the Branch Christmas Party..so it's been a while. It was called 'The Cure for Cabin Fever' since everyone was stuck inside this past month, because of the crazy weather. So we had a campfire in the Cultural Hall. Soooo many people showed up. We had lots of cookies, and hot chocolate, and told fun stories around the campfire.

Not a real campfire! Made out of Christmas lights and some wood, but it looks amazing!

On Saturday we went to Vermont for dinner. The things we do for food...haha! No it's the part member family I talked about before, The Young's. They are just AMAZING! We try to visit as much as possible. The wife, Allison, who is not a member has been working on her "Mormon Prayers", so she said the prayer before dinner :) She was really nervous, but she did really well. She blessed everyone in the world, but forgot to bless the food. Haha It was great though!

Yesterday, we had a St. Patrick's Day Potluck after church! WOOOO REPRESENT!! Everyone eats corned beef for dinner on Paddy's Day here...I tell them that NOBODY does that in Ireland! They think it's really authentic...haha So everyone is making us corned beef and cabbage for dinner this week..yaaaayy.....

The poster for our potluck dinner!

The Relief Society president made this whole thing!

But yeah..this week was great. I love it here! The people are SO  amazing. Myself and Sister Haws have seen miracles here as we have seen the Greenfield branch grow in "unity and love one towards another". This really is the work of the Lord!  I'm so grateful I am able to be a full time representative of the Lord. 

I love you ALL!

Being strange as usual

Have an amazing week, filled with lots of green! 

-HAPPY ST. PADDY'S DAY- 

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Brownies, Bibles and the Best Voice mail EVER!!

"Hey Everyone!

I hope you all had an amazing week! For us, this week was jam packed full of great things!

Last Monday we baked some delicious brownies for our Relief Society president because she hasn't been feeling too good these past few weeks, so we thought...who doesn't love brownies?!?! Of course we had to test them out to see if they were good enough for her...they were. You can't beat brownies made from scratch!

Baking brownies!

The end result ... yum!

On Tuesday we went to see a potential investigator, Veronica. She requested a Bible through Mormon.org so we went to deliver it to her. It seems like all the media referrals we get, everyone always requests a Bible. For a while we didn't really know how we could get these people that request Bibles to become investigators, but one of the Elders in our Zone gave us a genius idea. It was inspired! He said to ask the person what is it that interested them in reading the Bible. So we put that to practice! We went to her home, gave her a Bible, and asked what is it that interested her in the Bible. She broke down crying and told us that her husband just died 3 months ago and she wanted to read the Bible to find some answers. So we started talking to her briefly about The Book of Mormon, because it also answers the questions that she has, and we told her that it's another Testament of Jesus Christ, and what it's all about. We also briefly told her about the Plan Of Salvation, and we know it is not the end for her and her husband, and we told her that we know that families can be together forever. She accepted both the Book of Mormon and the Bible and we hope to start teaching her this week sometime! So it was really amazing, and she was really sweet :)

Also this week we met with Brian and Holly in Brian's house to read some scriptures together. Brian is preparing to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood so it's REALLY exciting! We're pumped about it! :P The Branch President gave him some reading assignments from the Doctrine & Covenants so we helped out! It was awesome!

On Friday we had a Zone Conference in Worcester (pronunciation in Massachusetts accent is Wuh-stuh!). It was incredible! Our whole mission presidency spoke to us, which made it extra amazing! I got to talk to President Christensen and tell him that the Terenure Ward is my home Ward! He was like "Oh my goodness that ward!! Are things still going great there?" So I told him that the Terenure Ward is still going strong and it's still amazing! He told me I made his month! So that was super exciting! He's awesome!

Some of my MTC crew at Zone Conference!

On Saturday, we went to the Caputo's house to teach Keith..and to have lunch (which was delicious). It was cool to have a lesson with Keith there because Brother Caputo is SO straightforward with him. He just tells it like it is! Which is what Keith needs, so it's awesome.

Here is Sister Haws riding Koda the triceratops at the Caputo's house!

So, funny story. While we were having lunch, Keith and Brother Caputo were joking about something, and then Keith made a joke, and called Sister Haws a hobbit, and we were all just laughing about it and it was great. THEN, yesterday we get a call from Keith, and he left a voicemail saying "Little Hee Haws (He gave us nicknames. I'm Clover and Sister Haws is Hee Haws), I was only joking yesterday. I don't really compare you to a hobbit!  One day, some wonderful, wonderful decent young LDS Elder guy is going to be a wonderful guy for you. And I give you that blessing and good cheer." Hahahahahaha oh Keith! He's seriously the best. That was the greatest voicemail we have ever gotten. We saved it on our phone. Poor Keith felt so bad about it. Bless his heart.

Mission life is great! Being a missionary is such a blessing, and a privilege. I am SO grateful for the gospel, and for the opportunity I have to be called to bring people unto Christ, here in the Massachusetts Boston Mission! The work is hastening on! :)

I love you all! Have the best week ever!!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett"

Sister Barrett also sent these really sad photos ...

So Sister Barrett would love to get some letters! You can contact me or her mom on Facebook for her flat address or write to her at the mission home address, located on the side of the page. Thank you for all the emails and support!

Greenfield is Going Green!

Hey everyone!!

This week was fantastic! I hope you all had a great week :)

On Tuesday we had to go to Amherst to get our tyres changed and to get our car inspected, so we spent some time with the Amherst sisters. We'd rather be doing SOMETHING than just sitting around waiting for our car to get fixed. Soooo..we had lunch with them and we took some lovely pictures ...

Then later on we went to a boy scout meeting. I know...it sounds SO weird and random, but it was actually great! One of the less active women in the branch invited us to speak to the boys in her son's scout troop, so we went, and we didn't really know what to expect, but it was actually really successful! We just talked about what we do as missionaries, and all the Moms were there asking us questions, and all the kids were asking questions, and it was awesome! Later on in the week we went to a "spaghetti dinner night" thing for the scouts and all the same people were there..and more, and one of the Mom's introduced us to another Mom that wasn't there on Tuesday. She said "These are the missionaries that spoke to the boys on Tuesday" and the Mom just smiled at us and said "My son was SO impressed! He said he wants to be just like you!". How cute!! So, these families aren't investigating the church just yet, but we're certainly planting the seeds and that's just as important :)

On Thursday we met with Keith, and he's really struggling with the Book of Mormon. He really looks DEEP into things, so we thought if we just read a chapter with him and explain what it all means SIMPLY he'll understand what's happening a bit better. So we read it with him and explained things simply and it went really well. He still doesn't have a testimony of it, but he'll get there. We invited him to give a Book of Mormon to one of his friends, and to bear testimony of SOMETHING he knows is true in there. He loves the Bible, and of course the Book of Mormon and the Bible support each other in everything they say, so he'll definitely be able to take on this challenge. He said he'd think about it, so we'll see what happens! :)

Then on Friday we had District meeting in Pittsfield...which is a million miles away..literally! It's a looooong drive! But it's okay because it's a nice drive, with nice scenery..and it was all for a good cause. District meeting was awesome! Aaaand I spotted an IRISH SHOP while we were there so we HAD to go in! It had all the Irish food you could dream of! Tayto crisps, digestive biscuits, baked beans and SO much more! :P It was wonderful :P I bought some Malteasers for Sister Haws to try. She enjoyed them :P Who wouldn't??

On Saturday we went to see Jose. He's making progress! We taught him about Temple work and family history and he was really excited about it!  He said "It's great that everyone is given the chance to accept the gospel." It's SO true! That is a HUGE blessing! But he STILL hasn't been to church. We really feel like that will be the turning point for him. He'll come someday soon. We know it! We have full faith that Heavenly Father will answer his prayers and let him know that this is where he needs to be. We also invited him to pray to know when he needs to be baptised. We felt like it was all a bit rushed before, so we want him to feel comfortable with it and know exactly when he needs to be baptised. So he's praying about a baptismal date now :) He knows he wants to be baptised, but the actual date is the question! So pray for Jose!!! Pray that he'll get his answer :)

So we actually had church on Sunday which was fantastic! It was great to see a full chapel! Keith was there so that was great, and Holly bore her testimony! :) It was really great to see her up there. She wrote it all out on paper, but then when she got up there she didn't even read it. She just said what was on her heart, and it was beautiful :) Holly is doing SO well these days. She has come a long way!

Also, we are obsessed with Shamrock Shakes ...

So as you can see it's been a pretty amazing week!

I love being a missionary! It's literally the best thing ever!

I love you all and hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett