Last week of second transfer!

HOLA!!!!!!
Hi my dear family!!! Man how i love getting e-mail... they always makeme laugh my face off and miss y'all just a little more. This has definitely been my most interesting week in the mission and honest pretty unproductive. We spent most of Monday packing up the old apartment which consisted of junk from years of missionaries... honestly there was globes, sombreros, car seats... who knows!! Then on Tuesday we spent the day unpacking and moving into the new apartment but I am not complaining because I HAVE HOT WATER!!! and we live in a complex with three other way cute couples from the ward so that has been fun... plus the manager LOVES us.. her name is JJ Jantz, she loves us but she hates the church. Kinda ironic. I guess one time one of the couples gave her a Finding Faith in Christ DVD and she gave it back to them. But she comes and visits us like everyday and asked us to pray for her daughter-in-law that has cancer so maybe we are making little steps with her. She really is a loud, crazy, texan though with the big hair and all and i love her!! On Wednesday we spent the day deep cleaning the old apartment which was pretty gross but we are breaking our lease so we didn't want to give them any excuse to do anything to the church... so that took some hours. Then we thought we were done for the week and Elder Hansen (from the mission office) told us we need to take our 2009 Malibu in for a Oil change and then he asked if we could drive into the office and drop off the keys to the old appartment. So we spent the day at Pep Boys and Dallas... Then we were so happy because we finally thought we could really get to work then Hermana Richardson got a bad cold!!! We still worked really hard this week don't get me wrong it was just so mixed up with "worldly" chores!! So on Sunday we got done at dinner (I made spaghetti!! aren't you proud of me!) and went out to work and it started pouring like cats and dogs and lightning and thundering but we went out anyway!! Then we got home at 9 PM and our building was the only one in the whole building that didn't have power!! We asked the neighbors what happened and I guess lightning struck the electrical pole RIGHT OUTSIDE our front door!! ha ha.. so pretty much we didn't get power till one in the morning our apartment was scorching.. but hey we had HOT WATER!! ha ha.. aren't we the luckiest hermanas you've ever heard of!!??? Another funny thing from this week... two weeks ago two Elder in our Zone got hit by cars while they were riding their bikes so for district meeting on Tuesday I made a better than #%* cake and brought it to them with a label on it saying "In honor of Elder Dalley and Elder Zobell... Better than "getting hit by a car" Cake" Everyone laughed so hard and the cake was SUPER good!! But on the spiritual stuff of the week!! The spanish ward is kind of falling apart with lots of less active families and even the long time members of the ward don't really GET the gospel. So we have been contacting a lot of less active families this week and it has been amazing to watch from the second you enter their house to when you leave... they feel the spirit and understand the need to come back... all of them have fifty million reason why not to or have been offended by something but none of them deny the truthfulness of this gospel and the power of the spirit. All they need is to feel the love and that they are missed.... it was amazing to watch two of the families walk into sacrament meeting on Sunday!!! I was so happy! i love the spanish branch though.. the President is amazing.. his name is Presidente Carasquillo and his wife Hermana Carasquillo went on her mission to Argentina and is American... they are so loving and truly care so much about the ward and about this missionary work. He took us to lunch at Chili's this week to discuss the new ward missionary leader and what the plan was going to be and my companion and I shared a chocolate moulton cake... at the end of the meeting he thanked us for coming and then looked at me and said, " It was an EXPERIENCE watching you eat that cake.. i never knew someone could love chocolate as much as my wife but i think i just found her!!" I was laughing so hard.. he always gives me such a hard time! But he is going to Vegas this week for work meetings and i gave him mom's cell number (the only one i could remember) and he should be calling y'all since he is going to be in "my neck of the woods" like he said... he is hilarious!
One of my goals this week has been to talk to everyone I see...even if it's awkward just talk to them... well we were coming out of an apartment and I saw a lady pushing a stroller a little ways off.. out of my way so I was not going to go talk to her since we were late for another appointment but then my goal popped in my mind so I went up and talked to her and got a return appointment for that Friday. We went back to teach her on Friday and her name is Nancy Adame and has the cutest little boy ever... she pretty much told US the Joseph Smith story.. She remembered it from when she lived in El Salvador when she was 14.. she said some young men used to come teach her and her friends at school but she hadn't seen missionaries since they were transfered out. We asked her how she felt and she said she knew it was true... she is so prepared!! Our next step like with every other hispanic is to get her a job that she doesn't work on Sunday so she can come to church and for her husband to give up his catholic tradition!! But i just thought it was amazing how much the Lord knows us and longs to help us accomplish our goals when we are willing to put in our work and effort!
We got a couple great english referrals this week from a couple that live in our same complex... They are the Hansen family and honestly theyare the cutest little family I have ever seen... Brother Hansen is going to the Chiropracter school her and Sister Hansen takes care of their two little boys... they are from somewhere in Utah. But they called us this week and left us a message about a referral they had for us. They preceeded to tell us that they had been having a picnic at the park and
gave a Book of Mormon and our number to a homeless lady that lived on the south side of a certain bridge... We haven't been able to find her yet! Then they called us and gave us another referral of a lady thatlives in our complex...they invited her to dinner with us and she said she didn't know if she had time because she had to take care of the complex's ducks... she feeds them, talks to them, and has named them! So pretty much we are getting some outstanding english referrals this week!! ha ha.. got to love the Hansens! We can't get ahold of Willie this week which is really weird... it is the same thing that happened with Eduardo in Iriving.. they are like GOLDEN!!! and then we can't find them for a week or a month... so I'm praying she comes back as prepared as Eduardo was!! We also met an amazing older man this week named Joseph Esters that we are going back to teach this week.. He is really really really smart in the Bible so our lessons are going to be interesting.. but he is caring for his wife and nephew right now who are in the hospital with cancer, plus his little granddaughter and still trying to work on top of that!! His wife used to be a preacher but stop because she realized her church was hypocritical... so we are really really excited to go teach him and hopefully his wife when she gets out of the hospital. We have one family in the spanish ward that is ready to get baptized but the wife has to get a divorce from her old husband in Mexico first who won't give her the divorce because she has the two boys.... but she has to get that first so she can marry her boyfriend she is living with now so they can all get baptized.. We almost set a date with another lady this week named Esperanza but she has to marry her boyfriend of ten years also because she can and he doesn't see the need to be married.. most of the time i feel more like a wedding planner than a missionary. but it will all work out in the Lord's time... please pray for them!
Well I feel like my letter is completely jumbled just like my mind this week... I guess I have really realized the importance of being set apart from the world while you are on your mission and focusing all your attention on the work!! I am excited for this week and know it is going to be AMAZING!!! Love you family!!
con amor-
Hermana Barber