Exchanges and a Sealing!

Hey everyone!

Sorry I'm late this week. We had interviews with our mission president yesterday, so we have p-day today!

So, this week was awesome! It was not a normal week. We had exchanges with the Glastonbury sisters again and that was really awesome, and THEN on Thursday night we drove down to Bridgeport CT to stay with the Bridgeport Sisters, Sister Francis and Sister Smith. I promise there's a good reason for this..

So we stayed there on Thursday night, and then on Friday, we switched companions for the day. I went with Sister Smith, and Sister Hansen went with Sister Francis. They stayed in Bridgeport, and Sister Smith and I headed to the Boston Temple. We went to the temple to be there for the sealing of two amazing people in the Greenfield Branch, Lee and Anthony! They got baptised this time last year when Sister Morgan was serving there. It was SUCH an amazing day. It was so incredible to see them get sealed, and to witness them taking this huge step in their lives!

All the Sisters with Lee and Anthony!

Also, speaking of Sister Morgan...or should I say Hannah? She was there! It was SO awesome to see my old companion since she's been home!

After that wonderful Friday, we headed back to our area and had a wonderful weekend! Church on Sunday was amazing! Our Ward Mission Leader bore his testimony and challenged both me and Sister Hansen to bear our testimonies. We rose to the challenge, and had a wonderful experience. I know that when we bear our testimonies of the restored gospel, our testimonies grow! I love the gospel so much!!!

Yesterday was also an amazing day. We had interviews with President Miller, and every time we meet with him I just get more and more of a spiritual confirmation that he is here for a great purpose and he has so much good to bring to our lives. He is an inspired man. I'm so excited for T-texts this Friday. Sister Hansen will be going home, so I'm also super nervous! Pray for me!! :P 

Last p-day we went to ESPN! We got to see how everything works! I still don't know anything about sports though ...

I love you all SO SO much!!

Sorry this is shorter than usual. 

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

21 Years of Life!

Hey everyone!

Oh my goodness this week was incredible!! Where do I even begin?!?!

Okay so I guess Monday is a good place to start..

So last Monday we went on exchanges with the Glastonbury Sisters. Sister Lind is a brand new missionary in the mission, and she came with me to our area. It was awesome! She's so great! Fun fact: Her dad served his mission in Ireland!

So we had an awesome lesson on Monday night. We went to teach Gloria one of the new member lessons, and we were teaching about The Commandments, and it was going great as usual. But it was even better because her son Eoin actually stayed in the room while we were teaching. We could see that every few minutes he'd stop playing his Xbox and he'd listen, but then after a few minutes, he pitched in and started participating in the lesson. He had some awesome comments! All the things he talked about were about the Plan of Salvation, so we said that next time we come, I'll bring my visuals for the Plan of Salvation, and we're going to start teaching him the lessons!!

So then on Wednesday, we had an interesting day. We did our weekly planning for all of our investigators, but we decided to do it outside because it was a really nice day. So it went great and we were very focused, and we came up with some great ideas to help each of them...but we were out there for a good few hours in the sun...so when we finished, we realised that we had WICKED sunburn on our legs! Mine were SO bad! Being Irish is rough sometimes...

The struggle is real!

Then Friday was another interesting day! We had district meeting and it was great as usual, but then afterwards we were making our lunch. We decided to make BLT's for lunch and we were all very excited about it. Well, the Elder who was in charge of making the bacon ended up burning it and I had a flashback of an interesting event that happened at the beginning of my mission. The fire alarm went off in the church, and the whole situation that Sister Blair and I went through in Norwich happened again. The whole fire department showed up. It was super embarrassing..and hilarious. Hopefully that will never happen again on my mission! :P

Okay then Saturday was AMAZING! We got to meet the couple who we got a referral for last Monday, Ashley and Adam. They are awesome! They live right beside the Temple, and they live in a little Mormon neighbourhood! We went into their house, and Ashley was so nice and she was so excited for us to be there, because she had been to church before and she loved it, but Adam didn't really look like he wanted us to be there. We got to know them and as we talked more and more he really opened up, and he was asking lots of great questions. When we asked them if they'd be open to taking the lessons, he said "You know, at first I didn't really want to hear anything, but I'm really surprised. I wasn't expecting it to be like this. I'm really intrigued and interested to know more." It was amazing! We have another lesson with them this Sunday, and they should be coming to church too!

Then later on Saturday, I got a lovely surprise! We went to the church to write up our weekly report, and when we walked into the library in the church, the Canton Elders were there and they had the room all decorated with balloons and they made a cake for my birthday! It was so nice!! They organised it all with Sister Hansen! I have the best companion!

Blowing out my candles.

Then on Sunday morning when I came out of the bathroom after my shower, there were balloons everywhere and a Happy birthday banner, and little sticky notes! It was so cute! Sister Hansen really went all out!

Sister Hansen's decorations

Then this awesome family from the ward, The Armisteads, came walking up our driveway and gave me balloons and a bag full of sweets...and some cheesecake :P I love cheesecake!

THEN after church, we went home for a few minutes and our house looked like it had been attacked by party decorations! There were decorations all over our door, and there were little American flags (because I love America :P) and there were oreos on our front step, and a bunch of cute little Happy Birthday notes from all the people I worked with in Greenfield! The Canton Elders organised the whole thing and it was literally the sweetest thing ever! It seriously made my day! 

What I came home to after church!

Happy birthday notes from the people of Greenfield!

THEN Hannah, our investigator made us a delicious 3 course gourmet meal and it was FAB!!! We had baked brie cheese with cranberry and apples and crackers for the starter, for the main course we had cajun chicken alfredo, and then for the dessert, we had cheesecake! Once again...I LOVE CHEESECAKE! 

Hannah gave me a birthday Tiara!

We also got to talk to Hannah about baptism, and we had a REAL conversation about it. It won't be happening before Sister Hansen leaves, but she is working towards it and getting closer and closer every day :) We love her so much!!

Oh my goodness it was juts such an incredible day, and an incredible week full of funny, crazy and amazing experiences! I love serving the Lord! Being a missionary is the best! It's changing my life with every day that comes :)

I love you all so much! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Green Cake & Miracles

Hey everyone!

So this week was AWESOME!! 

First of all, on Tuesday, Webex's came back! President Miller has decided to do a weekly Webex with us, so we're all super excited about that! It made my day!

Then Wednesday was my year mark and it was so weird just thinking back. I just can't believe it's been a year! It goes way too fast! It's just weird :P

Okay so the most AMAZING this that happened this week was...

On Friday after District Meeting, we got a call from our investigator, Hannah. She was in the airport on her way to Utah and she was asking Sister Hansen if she'd like her to visit her family. So Sister Hansen was like "YES! Visit my family!!!" And then Hannah said "I was thinking I could tell your Mom in person that you guys committed me to be baptised." We were like "WHAT?!?!?!?!?" It was the shock of the century! But we are SO excited!!! She's thinking of getting baptised just before Sister Hansen goes home, so we'll see what happens! We have dinner with her and her family on my birthday (she's a chef, and she's making a three course meal for my birthday...we're really excited about it), so we're going to talk more about it then, but it was literally the best thing EVER!!! I absolutely love that girl!!

So then on Saturday we got to go to a baptism! It was someone that Sister Hansen taught when she was serving in Canton CT. The Canton ward shares a building with us, so we didn't have to travel far! It was a really nice baptism :) The Canton Elders did a great job! This weekend we also baked a cake for Elder Dawson because it was his birthday. He loves green!

 (l-r) Elders Dawson and Terry, me and Sister Hansen!

So along with the miracle of Hannah, we also had another miracle happen today! We got a referral for a couple who live in our area. They live RIGHT beside the temple, RIGHT beside the people in our ward who are building the temple, and apparently they have a lot of awesome questions about the church! We are SO excited to meet with them! Miracles are happening!

The church is true! God is good! I know that when we work hard and give our all to serving the Lord, He truly blesses us! The work is moving forward!

I love you all, and I hope you all have the best week ever!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

One Amazing Year

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had an amazing week!

So yes, this week I'll hit my year mark on the mission. I can't believe it's been a year! One year, three new favourite places in the world, and a ton of new best friends and amazing people that have changed my life. It's so crazy to think that this day last year I gave my farewell talk, and got set apart as a missionary!

BUT I still have 6 months and I KNOW that they are going to be incredible!!! Just like this week...

So what happened this week..

Well on Monday we went to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which was AMAZING!! Usually I don't really enjoy listening to choir music, but when you're right there in the room listening to it, it's just amazing! The spirit was so strong! Also, during the interval, I was informed that the Greenfield Sisters were there, so I scanned the room and found them and I got to see some of the awesome people from Greenfield! It was such a great day :)

At the concert!

Then on Wednesday we were in Boston AGAIN for MLC. It was President and Sister Millers' first MLC, so we all really didn't know what to expect, but it was SO good! The culture of the Massachusetts Boston Mission is "Zion". So, the Millers wanted to know what that was all about. They just threw a question out there: "What is "Zion" to you?" and we all got to stand up and say what it means to us, which was SO cool! We got to teach them all about the culture of our mission, which really meant a lot to us. ALSO, another thing that President Miller wanted to discuss as a council was Norwich! There was a few of us in the room who have served there, and he asked us to talk about why Norwich is so different to every other area, and why it's so successful. We got to talk about how the members work in unity with the missionaries, and the Bishop and other ward leaders are just SO on board with every idea we present to them. It really is the ideal area for missionary work, but I honestly believe we can do that with any area :) We just gotta WORK! :P But anyway, MLC was so great, and it was so nice to spend that day with the Millers, and get to know them better :)

Okay so Thursday was...interesting. To say the least. First thing in the morning, I was curling my hair, and I dropped the curling wand, but before it hit the ground I grabbed the wire, but the curling wand swung back up and burned my arm. It was so unfortunate. And then that just set the tone for the day! Haha I was so sad that my arm was in pain! We planned for Zone Meeting with the Zone leaders and we were just all struggling. Sister Hansen was sick, I was in pain, one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Tuckett had some bad chicken earlier that day so he was in and out of the bathroom throwing up, and Elder Silva was also sick. We were on the STRUGGLE BUS! So, it's safe to say that our planning did not go very well.

BUT we had Zone Meeting on Friday, and it was just amazing to see how the spirit took over. The four of us (plus our mini missionary) said a prayer together beforehand so that we could bring the spirit and have a great Zone Meeting, and the Lord provided! It went SO well :) Everyone participated, and we were all uplifted together!

Then on Saturday, I caught the sickness from Sister Hansen, so we were both struggling, but that didn't stop us from serving our fellow people! We made some delicious brownies for some less active people in the ward. It was awesome! But then we said goodbye to our mini missionary, McKenna. It was so sad. She was awesome, and brought a lot of good to our crazy week!

Then church was amazing yesterday! There were some great speakers. The first speaker was the Bishop's daughter. She's 14..I think. She talked about music, and I wrote down one of the things she said because it was so awesome. She said "Our voice is the only instrument that God sent us to the earth with". And then she talked about how we have to use our voice to share the gospel and build the kingdom of God. I was like "YEAH!"

Then Gloria gave her first ever talk! She spoke about "Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy". She did SO well! She used all the resources and she shared personal experiences. We were so proud of her!

Update on the Hartford Connecticut Temple!

So that was our crazy, yet amazing week!

I hope you all have a great week this week!

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

America the Beautiful!

Hey everyone!!

I hope you all had an amazing week! Our week was great!

So we met our new mission President this week, President Miller. When he first walked in it was kinda weird because he looks a bit like a shorter version of President Packard. They're totally different, but both awesome. Someone gave a great analogy. President Packard is like Elder Holland, and President Miller is like Elder Bednar. They're both awesome, but in completely different ways. 

So, we celebrated the 4th of July this weekend and it was wonderful! We went to some barbecues and we had a different curfew so we got to watch fireworks! We had to be in by 10:30, so we met up with our Zone and watched Fireworks together! It was so awesome!!! Then in church yesterday we sang all the songs about America at the back of the hymnbook! I never thought I'd ever get to sing those in church. Dreams come true!

We love America!

We got a mini missionary yesterday and we are so pumped! Her name is McKenna and she's from Groton CT, which is in the Providence RI Stake! My old Stake! She is SO awesome! She wants to serve a mission so we're going to make sure she has the best week ever! We have a really crazy week though. We have a bunch of mission meetings to go to, so she gets to see what it's like to be a Sister Training Leader and go to Boston twice a week! 

We're going to Boston tonight to see The Mormon Tabernacle Choir! The mission got 500 free tickets! We are SO excited! 

This week we had a really cool lesson with our investigator McKelle :) She is just very open to anything because she hasn't really been brought up with any religious background. She KNOWS God is there and that He hears her prayers, but she doesn't really know anything else. She's awesome though. When we talked about how we have a living prophet on the earth today, she was like "Yeah I have no problem believing that!"

I just LOVE the people here!

This gospel is true! It brings so much joy to my life! I love the happiness that the gospel brings, and I just love being a missionary, and getting to share my happiness and love for the gospel with people everyday! 

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

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

Bittersweet Goodbyes

Hey everyone!!!

I hope you all had a fabulous week! 

This week was so bittersweet! Aahhh so much happened!

So first of all...Tuesday, we went to the church bright and early with the Zone Leaders and the Canton Elders to practice our song for the Farewell Conference. Before we started practicing, we made a fabulous breakfast consisting of pancakes and bacon! It was glorious! Then we practiced, and practiced...AND practiced! I was still super nervous. It sounded good, but I'm just a nervous soul! Sister Hansen suggested that I get a blessing, so I did, and it was really beautiful. The power of the priesthood is SO real! It gave me comfort, and I felt a little better :)  Then later that day I was talking to another Sister in our mission, who is an AMAZING singer, and I asked her "how do you never get nervous?". And she said something that really hit me. She said "We have been given gifts and talents from Heavenly Father, so that we can literally be an instrument in his hands to bring the spirit into people's lives through those gifts." I've never really thought of it that way. But it's so true. Heavenly Father gives us gifts and talents for a reason, and we need to use them the way He intends for us to use them, and literally become an instrument in His hands :)

I love this picture! With our Zone leaders, Elder Stones and Elder Silva!

We also got a text from Sister Packard on Tuesday evening telling us that there was a tornado warning! We were like "Nahh nothing is going to happen," But then later in the day, when we were on our way home, there were flashes of lightening in the sky. It wasn't fork lightening or anything..yet. The second I said "I wish it was fork lightening", this big bolt of lightening shot out of the sky! So...be careful what you wish for! Then the sky started turning a really weird colour, and it was just so scary. So we were glad to get home! Nothing happened thankfully. It was like there was going to be a tornado, but it just decided not to happen.

Then on Wednesday, we had a really cool lesson with Patti! We brought Gloria, our recent convert. She shared her conversion story and bore her testimony, and it was just beautiful! We still haven't been able to get Patti to come to church though. Her 13 year old daughter has been coming though! So that's super cool! She'll get there :)

Then Thursday was the Farewell Conference!  We had a training on making the Sabbath day more meaningful. President Packard showed us a video from the General Conference training that the General Authorities get the Friday before General Conference, and we spent some time talking about our thoughts and feelings about the Sabbath day. It was really amazing. We talked about the importance of the Sacrament, and during the video, something that Elder Holland said really stood out to me. He said "The Sacrament is the only ordinance we repeat for ourselves". Sacrament meeting is the most important part of Sunday, and I feel like sometimes we forget that, so it's certainly a goal of mine to make sacrament meeting, and partaking of the sacrament ore meaningful :)

After the training, that's when Elder Stones and I sang, and it went really well :) It wasn't perfect, and I was still a little nervous, but it was still good, and I just hope that we touched many hearts :) I'm glad that we could literally become instruments in the Lord's hands to bring the spirit into people's lives through music :)

Than at the end, we all got to hug President and Sister Packard. Hugging President Packard was so special! He just looked right into my eyes and said the nicest things, and I just cried! Oh man, saying goodbye to the Packards was so hard! But now we have President and Sister Miller, and we get to meet them on Friday, so that's definitely something to look forward to :)

President and Sister Packard!

The mission is definitely going through a lot of changes, but change is so good! I know that we're all going to grow so much from this, and we all need the Millers right now. 

As I always say "There's no growth in a comfort zone, and there's no comfort in a growth zone". SO #letsgooooooooo

Our last district meeting of the transfer!

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

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett

End of Another Transfer!

"Hey everyone!!

So this week was AWESOME!!!!!

The awesomeness started on Monday evening when we had a lesson with our investigator Patti! We had 3 members there with us, and it was SO powerful! She got a blessing because she has been in a lot of pain lately, and she's getting her hip replacement soon. The blessing was AMAZING. After the blessing we all just sat, and it was silent for a few minutes because we just wanted her to feel that spirit that we all felt there in that moment. Then she broke the silence by saying: "There's something different. I feel different. I just feel more peace and comfort." It was incredible! 

She also said that she wants to be baptised! We don't know when it's going to happen yet, but we're going to be working with her a lot to teach her all the lessons and get lots of members involved. Then later on in the week we went back to see her, and we did some service for her, and then we sat down and read some of the Book of Mormon with her. And THEN we gave her a Restoration pamphlet, so she can know a little bit more about it before we teach it to her. And then yesterday, we found out that she went to her church that she usually goes to, but she was so excited about everything that she read in the pamphlet, that she went up and read it to her whole congregation! How cool is that?!?!?! This woman is awesome!!!

So then on Tuesday we had our last Webex with President and Sister Packard. We went to the church bright and early to watch it, and when we got there...the power was out. We were there with the Canton Elders (we share a chapel) and we just did NOT know what to do! We were stressing out because we thought we were going to miss the last Webex with the Packards! We ended up just saying a prayer together, so that we could all get calm and figure out what we were going to do. After a few minutes, Sister Hansen came up with the GENIUS idea to call the Holbrooks (Senior Missionaries serving in our ward). We called and asked if they'd be watching the Webex, and they said YES! So we all drove to their house (which is right beside where the Temple is being built) and  joined them! It was such a blessing! The Webex was super emotional. President and Sister Packard are SO amazing!

Speaking of the Packards..we have our Farewell Conference with them this week! That's going to be a super emotional day too! Our whole Zone and the New Haven Zone will be there. I'm actually singing at it with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Stones. Please pray that I don't get nervous!! We've been practicing and it sounds really good, but sometimes my nerves get the better of me! AAHHHHH! I hope it's good!

So this Friday at District meeting, we did something quite unique. So we always have a "Zion building activity" as part of District Meeting, but this week's Zion building activity was...different. We played "Chubby Bunny". For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a game where you each go around in a circle and put a marshmallow in your mouth and say "Chubby Bunny" and you keep going around, adding more marshmallows and saying "Chubby Bunny".

Our zone leaders playing Chubby Bunny!

So the greatest news of all from this week is that T-Texts came last night, and SISTER HANSEN AND I ARE STAYING TOGETHER!! WOOOOOO!!! We are so pumped!!!! I'm going to kill her! (For those of you who are not familiar with mission terms, that means that I'm going to be her last companion before she goes home.) This is her last transfer, so I know I'm getting a new companion for sure next transfer. I haven't killed any of my companions, so this will be interesting!

Waiting for t-texts!

Happiness because we love t-texts!

 This is what happens when you do hand stands up against the door frame! Sister Hansen likes doing hand stands, which is fine if it's up against the wall, or something that you know you'll be able to put your feet up on...but on a door frame...

So what happened is..she did it on the door frame once, and it was fine..but when she did it again, I guess she was a little further back, so her feet completely missed the door frame, dangled in the air for a second, and then she flopped down on the floor. She's okay though! We laughed about it. A LOT!

After the event!

Sister Hansen's knee

We are SO excited though! This past transfer has been a BLAST! We have gotten to know each other SUPER well, and we're just so excited for another transfer of hard work! This is her last sprint! #letsgooooooooo

So, that's all for this week! I love you all so much! I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Rebekah Barrett"

Just a reminder that Sister Barrett's birthday is coming up on July 26th! She would absolutely love to get some birthday cards and letters as she loves hearing from everyone! You can send letters either to the mission home or contact myself or Maria on Facebook for her flat address!