NEW TRANSFER, NEW COMPANION!!

HOLA!!!
Well today was such a fun day with e-mails and shocking updates from everyone!! First i want to wish my lovely little neice the happiest second birthday this week.. JULES BEVERLY BARBER I LOVE YOU AND HOPE YOU HAVE THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!! I wish i was there to celebrate you entering your terrible two's.. good luck BEAN!! ha ha.. next I got a e-mail from aunt Lisseth asking if i was in her good friend's ward Veronica Salomon.. and as a matter of fact I AM!! Hermana Salomon feeds us like every week and has given us some good refferals.... such a small world.. but she is in Argentina for a couple months so I'll have to tell her hi when she gets back! ... I got a letter this week from a girl i went to High School with from her mission in Gionia Brazil and she didn't know I was on a mission but she saw a picture of me and Hermana Brundage that an Elder in her district got!! ha ha..(you know who that Elder is Hermana Jessica Brundage!!) once again what a small world!! THE CRAZIEST NEWS I GOT THIS WEEK WAS THAT KENNETH MARK METCALF GOT HIS MISSION CALL!!! which I am so excited about... but what is even crazier is that HE IS COMING TO DALLAS TEXAS WITH ME!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I was so shocked!!! I am so excited for you Markus.. you are going to LOVE IT... and LOVE LOVE LOVE your mission president.. they are great! I will start spreading the news to all my English buddies that the greatest missionary from St.George is coming.. make sure you are studying up in your Bible and ready to BASH!! ha ha.. I mean.. don't bash that's bad!! ha ah..I really am so so so excited for you and it will be fun seeing you around!! well here is Texas wa sa week of changes... my trainer went home from her mission and it was a hard day for me.. i was crying during transfer meeting.. i'm a baby what can i say... I don't think you really understand how good you had it until they are gone... honestly she
became one of my best friends, was such an incredible missionary, and I could walk into any situation with her with confidence knowing even if i threw the lesson away she would save it!! Man do i miss her!! My new companion is Hermana Medlyn from Ely, Nevada and she only has two transfers left in the mission... we have had an interesting week and her and Hermana Brundage are probably the most opposite missionaries there could ever be!! I am striving to learn something new from her everyday and we are learning to teach together after a couple train wreck lessons.. it has been kinda frustrating but also a growing week because I have done most of the door contacts in spanish and our first night together I actually taught an entire lesson in s panish by myself as she just kinda sat there and helped me once in awhile with spanish words.. it was interesting but has been a really growing experience with my spanish because now i am being forced to use every ounce of spanish i know!! so it has been good. You probably all remember a story about the GOLDEN family that just showed up the church about a month ago... Familia Moreno.. well they went to Houston last week to visit her brother and we have just been waiting for themt o get back and teach them this week and we wanted to set a baptismal date with their family this week. Well on Friday we went to their house and only the husband was there, he told us they had decided to move to Houston and that the rest of the family just stayed and he had only come back to move all their stuff.. i guess Taco Bell laid off all the employees that didn't have their papers so since half of our teaching pool worked at Taco Bell... everyone is out of a job. I was so sad... but they said they already found the church in Houston and I got their address to send the missionaries there. The highlight of my week was Friday though. On Wednesday I got a phone call from the A.P.'s (Elder Erickson) and he invited me and my companion to come to Mission Council that Friday. Mission Council is just a meeting with the A.P.'s, President and Sister Smith, and only the zone
leaders from around the mission... then us. Here i was in a meeting from 9-3 with all the best missionaries in the mission... the spirit was so strong and I felt completely inadequate. President did a training on how fear keeps us from reaching our potential and interferes with this work... then we had a training on teaching memeber to FRIENDSHIP new investigators not just FELLOWSHIP... I have never learned so much and made so many goals on the kind of missionary i want to become.. i have a LONG way to go but every day I will try to develop my talents and skills to try to help reach the people here in Texas.. well at the end of the meeting there was a testimony meeting and everyone got up and bore their testimonies... and i have really never felt a spirit so strong in a testimony meetin gin my life... but during one of the testimonies an Elder got up and talked about how he was going home at the end of this transfer and was so depressed to go home and then make him take off his tag...I think it is then that it hit me that in August i only have a year left to make a difference here and the time is going to fly.. i am going to feel that same depression at the thought of not being a missionary.. I have a lot of work to do. I want to come home with no regrets and be the best missionary i can possibly be!! Please pray for me that i can develop the talents that i need to and speak the language how i must to reach the people here. Yesterday we were stopping by an appartment complex called Sandpebble to see why a new investigator didn't come to chruch.. he wasn't home so we were walking out and there was a man leaning against a railing on the second floor of this complex so of course i starting talking to him and he said," So what are you Elders' names?" I kinda started laughing and told him we were sisters from the church and as i rambled off our church's name in Spanish.. he FINISHED IT!! I was kinda shocked and asked him if he knew of the church before... then he said, "Yes I'm a member!!" Well i guess he joined the church seven years ago in Honduros but hasn't come to church since he moved to the USA four years ago.. so we got his information and he is going to come back to chruch and we are
goign to starts teaching his friends in the complex (Hermana Brundage.. do you remember Reine and Julio the guys we taught on their front sidewalk by Carlos's house??... kinda awkward... ya they are his friends!! ha ha!!) But everyday i see little stories like this that the Lord's hand is in the work.. that he puts us in the right place at the right time if we are willing to listen and follow the spirit!! I love you all please pray for me and especially pray for the people in this area that they will be willing to listen to our message! I love you all and pray for you daily.... please we safe... AND WRITE ME!!! once again HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUBEE!!!
con amor,
Hermana Katie Barber