Third Week Mark!!

Hola mi familia, como estan? I hope all is well with each of you!! Happy Birthday Matt on the 6th!! I can't believe you are gonna be thirty.. super old! I love you and wish i could celebrate with you but i'll sing you happy birthday from the MTC. Charlene thanks for updating my blog.. i can't see it but i got your mom's comment from my dad.. i have met your cousin he is in the zone next to me so we have like gym, meals and stuff together.. he is a sweetheart. Mike and Kara!! how are you?? I
never saw the picture of stewart and don't really have time to look at them on the internet!! you should send me pictures of Kara's pregnant belly!! Miny and Tales thanks for all your e-mails, letters and support!! i love you both!!! Brad thanks for the little e-mail write me a letter though so I have more details about your and landrea's marriage!! ha ha.. and if packages only cost you two dollars why don't you send me more somoas and taglog girl scout cookies!!! I love you all so much family!! mom yes i want you to forward my e-mails to all those people i said and greg and melissa would be great!! Thanks for looking for a robe for me.. it will come in handy!! Just a lite weight cute one will work wonders!! Mom can you also send me a letter like today with my mission home address in Texas on it.. i have my favorite district leaving on monday and we are switching addresses on sunday so if you e-mail it to me i won't get it till next wednesday..but if you send it in a letter i get it in like two days!! thanks!! Tell Lisseth that i did get both her e-mails and love love love hearing from her!! Tell Mary hi!! the language is definitely coming and i can't wait to talk to her and her mother in spanish when i get back!! My week has been crazy as always!! i can't believe i have been here for three weeks already but at sometimes it feel like i have been in the MTC for a year!! I am learning so much and i would never give up this experience for anything. I can't even believe how three weeks can change a person and the rest of their life!! I have such a solid foundation of the gospel and an unwavering testimony that will just continue to grow
everyday!! I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it is to learn here in the MTC.. the spirit is so strong and you learn more about the scriptures, doctrines, and language than you would anywhere else and all the credit has to go to Heavenly Father. Truly who he calls he also qualifies! We have had the opportunity to hear from a couple from the seventy this week in the Sunday and Tuesday fireside.. and then we had mission conference on Sunday which means all of the elders and sisters in the MTC sit in a 2 hour meeting with the MTC president.. it was actually amazing and all about teaching with the spirit and constantly having the spirit with you... we have the power to convince but only the spirit has the power to convert.. also our purpose as a missionary is to invite others to come unto christ by helping them recieve a testimony in Jesus christ and his atonement.. and they made a really interesting point that the reason we are in the MTC is not to invite others to come
unto christ but ot come unto christ ourselves so we can show others where to go... how can we invite others to go to a place we have never been!! during one of the firesides a seventy talked about the plan of salvation and talked about the premortal life and how we chose to come and faught for our agency... then he said you also faught for the agency of the people you are going to teach where ever you go... you faught so they could reject your message... you faught so they could accept there message.. so i guess when i get to dallas when the doors are shut in my
face i better just smile because they are exercising their agency right?? ha ha... another speaker last night was an ameritis of the seventy or however you spell it and first off he told us something really cool!! right now as missionaries and a church we use the spanish bible translated by the queen or something so not the king james version but this seventy was the head to the committee who translated a new bible in spanish for the church and he said it is going to be out for our use before fall conference!! so i will be able to switch bibles on my mission.. it will be more true!! i am so excited!! he also said that with the same assurity that i know the sun will rise quietly each morning that i can have the same assurity that the lord knows me... he knows me by name.. and he is guiding my life.. and i know he is. This
decision to serve a mission has been the best decision i have made in a long time.. yes it has been super hard and exhausting and somedays i really wonder why i am here... but only here...pushed beyond myself and i going to find myself.. and find the person my Heavenly Father wants me to be!!! I had a very touching moment this week that is pretty personal... I was reading with my district and my teacher in Alma 18:32 that says, "Yea, and he looketh down upon all the children of men, and he knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart; for by his hand were they all created from the beginning." I just started crying... i guess my whole life i have known that i was created after the image of Heavenly Father but i always kinda had this assembly line product mentality in my head....but at the moment it clicked.. i was created by him to be like him. I was created by my father who is perfect and makes no mistakes. It was funny that i was in a room with my entire district but my mind wondered to an image of me standing in front of my father in heaven and he held my arms looking in my eyes.. he kissed my forehead and said, "Here is your body, my gift for you... you are perfect and beautiful and I love you!" All i could do was bawl and i have never in my life felt my Fathers love so much as in that moment.. it was like no one else was in the room with me. I know that i am perfect in his sight... i have the body i was suppose to.. the personality i was suppose to have... and he makes no mistakes! He loves me so much and he knows each one of us!! ( that was a really personal story... please just forward to like family and my close friends.. not on my blog!! thanks!!) Even since that experience i have not had a doubt that he is here with me pushing me along.. i know i have a great work to do and that there are people in Dallas only I can touch.. I just hope i will be able to
communicate my personality over ot spanish!! pray for me! About the lady in the call center that is homebound that i was suppose to call back and teach.. i called her back yesterday and she was on her way to the hospital.. the doctors told her they think it is her time to go so i don't know if i will ever talk to her again but she begged me to try and told me to pray for her and that she loved me.. i told her i
loved her back.. Then i had two more calls.. one from a man in new jersey and another for a lady in California names Carolina and i got both of them to agree to meet with the missionaries so i sent a referral to the missionaries in their areas!! it is so funny how you can care so much for complete strangers and ache for their acceptance of your simply testimony you bear!! I pray that they actually listen.. i am having some amazing experiences in here and my companions and i are geting along
great.. me and Hermana Christensen are like best friends now and have worked out most of our differences i can see us staying in touch after the mission... Hermana Crandell's sweetness has kinda turned into a "mom" and she constantly tries to tell us what to do... but i just hold everything in and not try to cause any kind of drama!! my district is amazing and last night after the fireside we all had a district meeting and bore our testimonies and all bawled.. we are all so close already..like brother and sisters and it killed me that i couldn't hug them when
they were crying! My favorite district in the zone leaves on Mondy to Argentina including Hermana Porter my tender mercy from the lord is leaving me.. but we also got a new district today with 12 people in it!! there are four sisters so that will be fun to get to know them.. they all seem really really cute, but they will only be here for 3 weeks then they head off to the MTC in spain.. so you will be hearing about them next week more!! Well to close this is for Matt and Mike to be really proud of me.. ha ha in gym i have been shooting alot and i beat a guy in around the world this week in gym!! just showing my skills!! ha ha..but then he beat me and then beat me twice in HORSE!! but hey at least i won once right!! ha ha.. i love you all!!! write me please!! If i think of anything else i will write it in a letter so my siblings don't have to complain about my letters being too long!! glad you guys like hearing from me so much!! ha ha.. i can't help it if i type fast and have lots
to say!! i miss you guys more than you know but i'm happy to be here!
!love you mom and dad!! you are the best parents ever!!
MUAH!! Hermana Barber