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