Cead Mile Failte :)

Hey everyone!

I hope you've all had an amazing week!! My week was fabulous!

So first of all..Tuesday. On Tuesday we had a nice, busy day, and we ended our day by going to the Youth activity in our ward. They were teaching everyone how to do Family History...something I've never been good at! Gloria (our recent convert) came too! She has gotten SO into Family history! It's great! 

So.. I've been told that Irish Family History is pretty hard to do..but it's still possible! I got help from one of the women in the ward, Sister Armistead. She is this AWESOME Australian woman! They're whole family is awesome! But she was SO helpful with my Family History. She even texted us the next day telling me that she's been doing a lot of research and she's found a bunch of stuff about my family history! She showed me everything and it's SO COOL! I just REALLY want to be good at family history stuff!! It's definitely something I need to work on!

This is literally on everyone's doors, and I wonder if they really know what it means. But if they don't, that's okay. That's why I'm here! To tell them that it means "A hundred thousand welcomes" :)

So then, on Wednesday. We went to see our investigator Hannah. She is so cool! She's 20, so we get along really well with her, and her parents are already members of the church. They just went less active before she turned 8 so she was never baptised. So we talked to her about baptism, and we invited her to be baptised on my birthday (July 26th..just so you all know), aaand she said no! But that's okay! We're still working on it! And she's really awesome! She'll be baptised someday, whether I'm here or not :)

Then later on in the week, we had a dinner appointment with this awesome family, the Rynne's. They just live around the corner from us so it's great. They're daughter, Nicole is literally the sweetest person! She's 18 and she's so awesome. She was wearing a t-shirt that said "Happiness is being Irish" and I was like "YES!", and then she was like "Oh I have something for you! I saw it and I just HAD to get it for you!!" 

She got me a t-shirt that says "Made in Ireland, and it has a picture of Ireland on it! Haha it's so awesome! I don't have a picture of it yet, but they're coming soon! Next week :P

Then this weekend was just fantastic! We had one of the Relief Society sisters, Sister Roberto, come out with us for a few hours on Saturday, and she is just amazing. We went to see our investigator Patti, and we did some service for her around her house because she's in a lot of pain, so she can't do a lot herself. She's getting a hip replacement soon! But while myself and Sister Hansen were doing service, Sister Roberto just sat down with her and talked about the gospel, and the Book of Mormon and EVERYTHING! And THEN she went in to talk to Patti's daughter and invited her to church. And then as we were leaving she said to Patti "I want you to read the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes a day. This book has brought me the greatest joy in my life. I testify to you that this book is true and that it will make your life better, and you'll be happier!" We were like "YEAH!!!" This woman is AWESOME!!! It was so great!!

Then on Sunday, in the evening, we went to the Stake Centre for a Fireside. President Packard did a Fireside about the Book of Mormon and it was SO amazing. 

I LOVE the Book of Mormon! I have developed such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon throughout my mission. It has changed my life. I know it answers the questions of our heart and soul. I know that if everyone reads it and ponders it, and prays to ask God is it's true, they WILL get an answer. And it might not be a big miraculous experience! It wasn't for me. But I know without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true, and that it is the word of God. 

I love this gospel SO much, and I LOVE being a missionary!

This dog thinks it's a meerkat!

I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Adventures in Avon

Hey everyone!!

Sorry about last week's email! This one is on time!

I hope everyone has a great week! My week was fabulous!

Last P-day we went to a trampoline park. It was super fun! Most of our zone went, and it was so cool! I've never seen anything like it!

On Tuesday night we went on exchanges with the Glastonbury sisters and it was so cool. I really like going on exchanges and learning from the other sisters in the Zone. We also went on exchanges with the Ellington sisters on Friday. It was so great. But I also love being back with my own companion, and in my own area. I really know that we're with our specific companions in our specific areas for a reason. Sister Hansen is just AWESOME!

On Wednesday we went to the temple with the Packards, and had our last MLC with them. It was really emotional. They bore their testimonies and it was beautiful! I love them! They also prepared us for our new mission president, President Miller. We're all excited to be here with him and Sister Miller, and we know that we're in the mission at this time for a reason.

With the Packards!

Later on in the week, we went to the baptism of an 8 year old in the ward. There were so many people there! One of our investigators came, because she's friends with the family of the little girl who got baptised. She was talking to someone afterwards and she said "I am very active in my own church, and we have activities and things just like the ones you have at your church, but whenever I'm here, I just feel different. There's a difference here."

It was really amazing that she noticed the feeling of the spirit there :)

Sorry this is so short. This week was really amazing. I hope you all have a great week!

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

BEST WEEKEND EVER!

Hey everyone!!

I am SO sorry I didn't get to send an email last week! I'll be sending 2 today, so this is last week's one :)

Last week was INCREDIBLE! Okay so I'll start at the beginning of the week, and we'll save the best for last!

So, we got a media referral from Salt Lake telling us that there was a woman in our area who wanted us to visit...so we did! Her name is McKelle, and she's a super sweet lady. She has 4 kids, and her husband is in the navy! She talked to us about how she lived in Virginia, and she was meeting with the Sisters there, and they were really awesome. So we invited her to take the lessons and she's our new investigator now, along with her family! :)

Then later on that day, we went to our dinner appointment...and it was a dinner appointment like no other! It was at a mansion! We drove up the looooong driveway to this MASSIVE house, and when we walked in there was a chandelier and a grand piano! The woman who invited us over is a nanny and she works for these super rich people. I have never met people like them! I've only seen people like them in movies and TV shows! At one point the woman was just like "One morning I was just eating my breakfast and my husband came down and said "honey, would you like to go buy an Aston Martin today? and I said "sure!" Sooooo yeah it was really different, but it was great to meet them! I'm just still getting used to the way people live here! :P

I just have to tell you all how AWESOME the members are in this ward. They just call us up and tell us that their friends want to learn about the gospel. I'm telling you all....it's the Temple! The temple is being built here, and SO many miracles are happening!! It's amazing!

Update on the progress of the Hartford Connecticut Temple!

I love to see the temple ... even if it's not built!

Okay so, the weekend....

So Saturday was just incredible. I can't even put into words how amazing it was! Elder Holland is just the most amazing man! We all got to shake his hand and tell him who we are and where we're from. So, I went up and introduced myself, and when I said I was from Ireland he was like "IRELAND?? Where in Ireland?" So I said Dublin and he was just like "Wow you don't have an accent" hahaha

But as for the actual "questions and answers" session...He started off by talking about Elder L. Tom Perry. He said "Before we have our questions and answers session, there's just one thing I want to address". He said "We are about to lose one of the greatest warriors of our time.", and then he went on to talk all about his love for Elder Perry. And he told us to keep Elder Perry and his family in our prayers. He was very emotional, and it was just really amazing to me how in tune he was to the situation. This was just 2 hours before Elder Perry passed away.

So, we all didn't get a chance to ask our questions. We only had like an hour and a half with him. So he answered about 5 people's questions, but in doing so,  he answered everyone's questions. He is just SO incredible! I think one of the coolest things that happened is, one Sister asked a question saying that her brother has served a faithful mission, but now he's home and he's inactive, how can she help him? And Elder Holland just cried and said that nothing devastates him more than that. He said we must be the people that we want our investigators to be, because we are God's investigators, and he is always working with us, and helping us to come closer to him. And then he asked the Sister where she lives, and said that he's going to visit her brother, and help him. Imagine Jeffrey R. Holland turning up on your doorstep! It just showed me how truly humble and Christlike he is. He is willing to go out of his way to minister to people individually. It was just such an incredible day!

And THEN on Sunday....KEITH GOT BAPTISED!!!! I got to go back to Greenfield to be there. It was SO amazing! Best day EVER! When I walked into the little Greenfield chapel again, it just felt like home. I felt like I had never left, and I just got emotional seeing all the people that I know and love there. Being there again was really special. And seeing Keith get baptised after 7 years of investigating the church was just AMAZING! I can't even put into words how great it was. It was just a really special day for me. Definitely one of the highlights of my mission. It was harder to leave this time, than the first time. I just love Greenfield, and all the amazing people there so much :) There will always be a piece of my heart there!

KEITH'S BAPTISM!!

And as for Avon, well, it's wonderful! Sister Hansen is SO awesome! I love her! We just became instant best friends. It's the wonderful thing about having companions :D

I love you all so much, and hope you have had an incredible week :D

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Move to Avon!

Hey Everyone!!!

This week has been super amazing and crazy!

This email is going to be shorter than usual because today has been crazy, so I don't have a lot of time, but I do love you all!

So I said goodbye to Greenfield, and hello to Avon, CT this week! It was super sad to say goodbye to everyone in Greenfield. That place is my home, but I know that I'm here in Avon for a reason, and I'm excited to be here!

So, my new companion,Sister Hansen is AWESOME!!! She's from Provo, Utah of course! My 3rd companion from Utah! WOOO!! She's seriously the greatest though.

My Zone is also awesome. The Hartford Zone is everything I dreamed and more. We have the ghetto of ghettos here, right in the centre of Hartford, and we also have the richest of the rich here in Avon. Best of both worlds!

So we had a baptism on Saturday! Surprise! It was so awesome! The woman who got baptised, her name is Gloria and she is so awesome! She did it all this weekend. She got baptised, conformed, AND went to the Temple today to do baptisms...hence why I'm emailing later today :)

Sister Hansen, Gloria and I at her baptism.

Today at the temple with Sister Harris!

So we have a crazy couple of days coming up in the mission....especially Saturday! So this Saturday, Elder Holland is coming to the mission to have a special Mission Leadership Council with all of the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders. I have to say the opening prayer, and I'm just about dying. I'm so terrified. It'll be great though. I'm sure of it. We're having a "Questions and Answers" session with him so it'll really be amazing. I'm super excited and super terrified at the same time. JEFFREY R. HOLLAND!

Okay well, I love you all so much! I hope you have the most amazing week EVER!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Whaaaaaaattt???

"Hey everyone!

So I don't even know where to begin because SOOOOO much has happened this week!! All good things :D

Okay well, I guess I'll start from the beginning...

So on Wednesday we met with Keith at the Caputo's home and we planned his whole baptismal service, like who's saying the prayers, who's giving talks, who's baptising him etc. It went really well. He seems like he's totally ready and very excited. Now all he has to do is have a baptismal interview and then he's all set to go!! We're so excited for him!!

Okay so I'm just going to skip to Friday because this was the long awaited day. It was the day that T-texts came. T-text day is SO intense! Everyone is just so excited to find out if they're staying or getting transferred, and it's just crazy! So anyways, we went to District meeting as usual, but then we all got a text saying that T-texts weren't coming till later in the evening, so that made it even more intense. We had to wait even more time to find out what was happening!

So on our way back from District Meeting, we were just in the car, and then we get a call...from President Packard!!! I answered the phone, and then he said "Sisters! I'm calling to tell you that you have BOTH been called as Sister Training Leaders!"  I'm pretty sure Sister Saito's heart stopped! She just looked at me and shouted "WHAT?!?!" It was a crazy phone call! But we were so excited! I asked President i we'd be staying together as STL's, but he told us "You'll just have to wait till T-texts to find that out!" So that made the wait for T-texts even more intense!!

It wasn't until 6pm that T-texts came. We had to wait till the VERY LAST TEXT to find out what was happening to us! So first of all, we saw this: "Sister Halcom- Greenfield", so then I knew I was gone, and then we saw: "Sister Barrett- Avon". 

I'm going to Avon, Connecticut! Back to where it all began! CT BABY! 

It's in the Hartford, Connecticut Stake! So because nobody knows where Avon is, I'll give a little background. It's right outside of Hartford City, The Hartford Temple is in my Ward boundaries, the ward boundaries are tiny compared to my 2 other areas. This is really going to be a big change, but I'm excited.

On the other hand, I'm sad to be leaving Greenfield of course. This place is home. I've been here for 6 months and I've really gotten to know the people and the area, and I've become part of this branch. The people here are family to me, and I'll never forget any of them. I'll be keeping in touch with them for sure! And hopefully I'll be back for Keith's baptism! :D

So my last week in Greenfield has been really amazing! We had an incredible lesson with Porter. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we had Kelly, one of our members with us, and it was just AWESOME! We had our lesson all planned out, and it was going better than we could ever hope for, but then as we talked about baptism, something inside of me just told me "you need to invite him to be baptised', and I fought against it for a few minutes because I told myself that he wasn't ready, but then I couldn't hold it in any longer, and I just had to. His answer to the invitation was not what I was expecting. He said "Yes I do think that's something I need to do, but not right now." It wasn't "No". So we told him that that's okay. He'll know when it's the right time, because the Lord will tell him. I told him that the Sisters will let me know when he's getting baptised, so I can come back, and he said he'd love that! It was really great :)

So, my time in Greenfield has come to an end, and it's been so incredible, I've learned so much from my companions here, and the members and investigators here. I've developed lifelong friendships, and I've come to love the people and the place. It's a very special place to me. When other people hear of Greenfield, Massachusetts, they probably say "Uhhhh where even is that??", but to me, it's home, it's where my family is :) I had the opportunity to bear my testimony one last time in Greenfield yesterday, and it was really emotional. But I was glad that I got to stand up there and let everyone know how much they mean to me, and bear my testimony of the restored gospel. 

My mission means everything to me, and I'm excited for this next chapter. I'm excited to see what Avon, Connecticut brings into my life! :)

I got some new glasses this week! Hope you all like them!

I love you all so much! I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett"

Anyone who wants to write to Sister Barrett in her new area, you can contact myself or her mom on Facebook for her address! Thank you for all your love and support!

#mayofmiracles

Hey everyone!!

This week was seriously INCREDIBLE!!

So first of all, I didn't email yesterday because we had interviews with President Packard pretty much all day, so today is our p-day instead :) Yesterday was so awesome! It was our last interviews with President Packard before he goes home, so it was sad, but still so so good. We all thought we were going to get some information about the upcoming transfer before T-texts come on Friday...but we got absolutely no information, so we'll all just have to wait till Friday! I'm so nervous! I've been here for a long time. It might be time to go :( We'll see!

The Springfield Zone (aka the New Jerusalem). So much Zion!

So this past week....okay so last Monday evening we went on exchanges. I stayed in Greenfield, and Sister Saito went to North Brookfield. It was an awesome day! We went to see our investigator Porter. We talked with him about the Book of Mormon, and it was really incredible. I got very excited to talk about how much my knowledge of the Book of Mormon has grown, and how much my testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown, and I really can't remember anything I said to him. But I just LOVE The Book of Mormon! It turned out to be a really amazing lesson, and he's progressing a lot! We just NEED to get him to church! :)

Then later on in the week we went to see Jose and we introduced a "15 step stop smoking program" to him. It was written by missionaries in the Ireland Dublin Mission in the 1980's. So if any of you remember an Elder David M. Bresnahan, he wrote this program. It's a 15 step program that takes 7 days. Yes, it helps people to quit smoking in 1 WEEK! When we told Jose about it, and introduced it to him, he was SO excited!!!! We're going to start it with him this week!

Then on Friday, we had an awesome Zone meeting with our awesome Zone!! After our Zone meeting, we got a call from Keith. He was in the hospital. He's been pretty sick lately, but he's doing a lot better now :) So on the phone he said to us "I just need to be baptised". And we weren't sure how serious he was because he has been investigating the church for like 7 or 8 years, and he always says he wants to be baptised but he never will. So we didn't take it too seriously. Then later on, ALL of our appointments cancelled, which was the worst, so we just started going to see a bunch of inactive members that we didn't know. We realised after a short time that it wasn't really effective, so we decided to just sit in the car and pray. We asked heavenly father what we should do with the time that we had, and what would be the most effective thing to do with our time, and we asked him to direct us to where we need to go. After we prayed, I felt like we needed to go to Athol, which is a town that's about a half hour away from Greenfield itself.  We decided to visit a potential investigator there, but when we got there, she said that she was super sick, and asked us to come back another day. 

So, I just said "Okay let's just go to the Caputo's." They just came back from Washington, so we hadn't seen them in a while anyway. we went over there, and they were all excited to see us and to get a surprise visit. We talked to Brother Caputo for a few minutes, and he brought up Keith. He asked us if Keith had mentioned to us that he wanted to be baptised. We told him that he said he wanted to be baptised, but we didn't know how serious he actually was about it. But Brother Caputo told us that he really was serious about it, and he really does want to be baptised! Then he said that he was just about to leave to pick him up from the hospital. So we said to him "Okay Brother Caputo, we have a challenge for you! We want you to show us how great you are at missionary work. If Keith really does want to be baptised, then when you see him tonight, set a baptismal date with him". So he took on the challenge, and left.

So, then when we were on out way home, we got a call from Brother Caputo. He said "Sisters, I have Keith here with me, and we've been talking, and he wants to be baptised on May 31st!" AAAHHHHHHHH! 

So Keith is getting baptised!!!!!!!! This is seriously the BIGGEST miracle EVER! Just ask any missionary that has served here in the past 7 years! Everyone in the branch is so excited, everyone in the mission is so excited, Keith is so excited! It's so awesome!!!

This is seriously a May of Miracles in the MBM! :D

This week, we also got to visit Keith and do some yard work for him. We also got to sit on his motorcycle and take fun pictures :p

I hope you all have an incredible week!

I love you all so much :)

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Spring is here!

Hey Everyone!!

This week was pretty awesome!

First of all...the weather has been AMAZING! It was 80 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday!!! Which is about 27 degrees Celsius! So it was NICE!!! Spring is finally here!!

SPRING!

This week we had the opportunity to go to the Temple! We had "Return and Report", which is basically just a meeting with President and Sister Packard and the AP's where the new missionaries and trainers come together after 3 weeks of training to see how things are going, and afterwards we get to go to the Temple! It was amazing!!! It was such a great day! :D

On Thursday, we had a lesson with our investigator, Amanda. She has been coming to church every week, and she is just AWESOME! So we invited her to be baptised this week! She's praying about it, but we REALLY feel like this is going to happen! She is SO ready! She bore her testimony in church this week, and made people cry because it was so beautiful! She is ready to be baptised! Pray that she'll recognise that for herself. She is SO close!!

On Friday, we went to Vermont again to go to an appointment, and we had some spare time before the appointment, so we decided to go to an inactive member's home. They lived nearby so we thought "Why not?". Well, when we were driving there, we ended up going down this long bumpy road, beside this massive, beautiful lake. The house was RIGHT by the lake. It was BEAUTIFUL! So we knocked on the door and waited...and waited...aaaand nobody answered. There was nobody home. So we were walking back to our car, and this guy in a jeep pulls into the driveway, and gets out of his car, so obviously we're like "Hey! Do you live here?" He said no...

But then he told us that he's a member of the church, and he's from Connecticut, and he just has a lake house in Vermont, and he was just driving by, and saw us and decided to say hi. It was the most random thing EVER! But it was cool!

WOO! Cars are fun!!

Then on Saturday we had dinner with Lee and Anthony. Two of our recent converts, and they brought us out to have a picnic by a lake, and make s'mores! It was MAGICAL!

The lake where we had our picnic! BEAUTIFUL!

It was such a great week, and I'm excited for the week ahead! I know it's going to be awesome!

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

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett