Hola familia y amigos!!
I want to start my letter today by wishing MY VERY OLD BROTHER WHO IS TURNING TWENTY FOUR AND NOT MARRIED a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Love you Bubbie!! your card is in the mail.. I'm just sending it to the house! wish i could be there to celebrate... don't do anything too crazy! I can't believe Matt and Charlene just picked up and went to Hawaii.. super jealous.. and I heard matt is starting school in August.. so did he get into BYU or choose a different school? Stewart sounds like he growing healthy and Mike and Kara are having a riot being parents.. and I'm excited for Brandon Howick to get married.. please tell him i said CONGRATS!! mindy and tales are still ridicuously hopelessly romantic...enough said! Brad... still waiting for another e-mail from him.. as always! Brad.... did you ever make that phone call??
Well my week has been great! i have been in carrollton for two weeks now which means two weeks without a hot shower. But they have been dealing with this for over eight months now in that complex so we are breaking the lease and moving into a new apartment tomorrow that is really cute and in a way better part of town. So yes i have to pack all my stuff up again!! plus the rest of the apartment today!! super fun huh?? i am just excited for the HOT SHOWER!!! Plus in the complex is like four young couples going to Parker the Chiropracter school here and they are super excited for us to live close by... its like moving into the same complex as family... so i'm super excited and will feel super safe there!
We had zone conference this week in Frisco which was amazing as usual... my President and his wife are truly the sweetest most amazing, funniest couple ever!! Our whole conference was about getting investigators to church and then how to help them have the best experience possible once we get them there. We talked a lot about how each of our investigators don't just need someone to fellowship them but friendshipping.. not just being there becasue they are on assignment because they really care! We have been doing a lot of member training in hopes that our investigators will feel more welcome at church and stay... members really have a desire to help in the work but a lot of the time they have no clue what to do... so it has been fun getting to know the members more and do some little trainings on friendshiping our investigators. I always love zone conference because it is like a pep rally... we get all pumped for the work again and spiritually revived!! I talked to President and Sister smith after the conference and they gave me a little insight... we have one spanish sister coming in in two weeks so I really dont' know how transfers are going to go in two weeks we are praying that me and Hermana Richardson stay together and they seperate the threesome but that would mean they would probably double transfer someone back into
Iriving which doesn't really make sense since I know the area.. so it might be another shocker transfer.. but then we have three new sisters coming in in September and President said to me... just so you know all sisters that have over a month in the field will be training so I would study hard if i was you! with a little smile... then said most people don't get that much insight before such a big change!! i really am super nervous.. three transfers in the field.. four months in Texas and
training. Y'all better pray doubletime for me!! PLEASE!! Spanish work here in Carrollton in a lot more receptive and progressing then the english work here.. which shouldn't be a shocker! We have some fun families that are investigating but not progressing very fast for marriage problems or others... they are Familia Escalante, Familia Gonzales. We are also teaching older ladies named Elsy and Esperanza.. they are just kinda lazy and not willing to do the work to change. But really i have fallen in love with the hispanic culture and people. They are so warm and loving... plus they make good food! The english ward has some great families that I love.. one of the strongest families in the branch are actually converts from Sister Brundage... the Elmore Family and you should just meet them.. they are incredible and have such a desire to learn and grow in the gospel... Brother Elmore actually does his home teaching with a smile!! imagine that! It is amazing to see people come into the gospel after never having it in their lives and then I truly realize all the things I have taken for granted in my life always having the church...simple things like home teaching, visiting teaching, going to the temple... makes such a huge difference!! But the english work has really been suffering in this area there are lots of inactive families we have been trying to get back to church and we have been trying to find some solid english families and Man, has the lord blessed us! We got six new english investigators this week which is honestly unreal!! The first one is named Anne McDougal-Thompson and i'm not going ot lie is a bit of a nutcase. She loves world of warcraft and is a computer programmer that loves cats. She was in the former investigators pile from years ago and in her record it said she had an online boyfriend who was LDS. so my companion a couple weeks back went and knocked on her door and a guy answered the door and after they did their contacting spill thinking
anne didn't live there anymore he look at them and said, "I'm an Elder." So pretty much we went back and met Anne and she had married her online boyfriend, he moved away from his parents that were pushing him to break up with anne and go on a mission so he left... moved to Texas and they are married now. We found his records on the ward list and no one has EVER tried to visit him. So we started the lessons with Anne this week. She went to a lot of churches when she was younger and has some crazy
concepts of God... but we started teaching her and I stopped and had the impression to ask Zach how the gospel has blessed his life and his families. This was kinda a risky thing considering he hasn't come to church in over a year and I had no clue if he even had a testimony anymore. but the spirit poured into the room as he bore such a sweet testimony and was bawling as he talked about the power of the priesthood and other blessings. It was amazing... Anne still has crazy theories but at lease Zach is on his way of coming back to church! So then later in the week we got a media referral for a Bible for a person named Willie Owens... now usually when you get a referral for a Bible here in Texas they don't go anywhere.. or lead to bible bashing. But we decided to set up an appointment with Willie on Friday and we showed up to a older african american lady with a really strong and deep accent who loves the bible!! At first I honestly didn't think it was going to go anywhere.. we would share a quick scripture from the Bible and leave....then she started openning up to us and telling us about how her daughter had just died from cancer and she has gone from church to chruch trying to find something... so right then we knew we needed to share a first! She really related to Joseph Smith about going from church to church and wanting to know which of all of them were right. After the first vision she just looked at us and said with excited REALLY!!! well we committed her to pray about it and read and then set up an appointment for the next day. The next day we went back and we followed up if she had prayed and she said... you know i haven't slept since my daughter died and i prayed last night, felt complete peace, and slept like a rock until eleven in the afternoon. Then she continued to tell us how she had been praying that God would send someone to heal her broken heart and then we came along. She said she knew we wer from God. She is honestly golden and has such a caring, loving spirit about her. After we explained the steps to return to the celestial kingdom, faith,
repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end. She said, "So do i need to get baptized again in your church?".... we explained proper authority and re-explained the apostasy but that is the PERFECT question that every missionary wants to hear! we have another appointment with her tonight... so wish us luck..well i guess you don't need luck as long as you've got the spirit!!
I am definitely seeing miracles here in Texas and God answers our prayers everyday even in small ways...even if it is just giving us hot showers again! ha ha.. but this the best work I could be doing right now in my life.. i'm in the business of saving souls and answering people's prayers... can't think of anything better to be doing with my time!
Thanks for all your love, prayers and support! My letters are starting to dwindle... DONT FORGET ABOUT ME!!!
love you all,
Hermana Barber
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Hola from Carrollton, TX!
Hola from Carrollton, TX!
Well last monday after I got done writing my e-mail we got a phone call from the A.P.'s saying that since there are only 5 hermanas in the whole mission who speak spanish and one is going home in a transfer and we are getting four new ones...(which mean we are all probably going to have to train) he was changing us all around to prepare for that. So we got that phone call about one in the afternoon and we had to be out of our apartment and to District meeting the next day by 10:30 am. It was crazy night of visiting tons of members and getting addresses/pictures and telling them all to pray that I come back!! ha ha... it would be fun to go back there when i know spanish tonz better. We said goodbye to some of our investigators but i didn't get to say goodbye to Eduardo because he was in Missouri working so we just called him and luckily he has met the other elders and knows people in the ward so i think he is goign to be okay. It is funny how attached you get to complete strangers and how much you come to love them and they love you. I was so sad to leave but everything happens for a reason. I spent probably three hours working on the AREA BOOK for the Elders that talks about all our investigators and potential investigators so that no one would fall through the cracks, I wrote up all our appointments we had already scheduled for the week plus put a sticky note on everyones teaching records to let them know exactly what we were going to teach and their background so hopefully we don't loose anyone that would have progressed... but the elders in my other district are amazing and I made them promise me they would at least get Eduardo baptized.. and it was really funny 'cause when I called to say bye to Eduardo I told him i had already gotten permission to come back for his baptism... ha ha and he doesn't even have a date but all he said was okay! ha ha Well the next day I went to district meeting, then to eat with my district. hermana Medlyn went to Grand Praire which is in the same Zone, like 15 minutes away into a threesome with hermana Christensen and Hermana Schulte... then the Missionaries from the Mission office Sister and Elder Hansen came and picked me up and took me to the mission office to meet with my new companion.... There were like seven sister there at the mission office doing transfers also and I met up with Hermana Richardson and then we came out to Carrollton,TX.... it is about 15 minutes away from the mission home and the temple so i'm realy close to downtown dallas. We have a HUGE area and cover a small part english and then all of it is spanish. We have a English Ward Dallas 6th... then a Spanish Branch, Sunbeck. I have loved the members in the English ward so far because there is a Chiropractic school called Parker here in Dallas so a lot of the members of the ward are young couples that just came here from BYU and they are so sweet..it's kinda like eating with mike and Kara... it's really fun. I went to church in English yesterday for the first time in almost 5 months which was actually really weird! and now we have to trade off teaching in english and spanish and i really CAN'T pray in english!! Which is probably a good sign with my spanish! Well the area has a lot of eternal investigators and part member families that have been worked with for YEARS so this week is going to be a lot of tracting to find new investigators especially english work and cleaning out the old investigators that aren't going anywhere. It will be good especially since my new companion and I work so well together. her name is Hermana Heather Richardson and she is 24 and from Woods Cross, UT. She has onlybeen out 6 months earlier than me and kinda has had a hard time learning spanish because she is dislexic but she is definitely better than me and can get her point across. She actually helps me in door contacts and I actually feel pretty confinant walking into lesson which is definitely a good change. We are growing and learning together which is also fun! Sorry I don't have any amazing spiritual stories this week... its kinda just been a week of getting to know everyone and the area which is huge.. all of Carrollton, Addison, Lewisville, and Coppell and it's a lot more ritzy then Irving was.. i never realized I was in such a ghetto part of Dallas before.. i loved it! But this area will be great also and I'm excited to meet new people and grow to love them as much as i love the people in Irving! With my new address... maybe only send letters there this week because we don't have hot water in our apartment and they have been promising to fix it for 8 months so we are moving to a new apartment maybe this week.. not sure!
It was good to hear that everyone seems to be doing great at home! i can't believe Jules is Two.. and that TemeKula Riley is turning 5 this week!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEKE!!! i hear my little nephew stewart is cuter than ever and I hope he still lets me snuggle him when I get home. Brad is still trying to find a wife...you better not even think about getting married till i get home! Mindy and Tales are still in their mushy gushy newlywed stage. Mom and Dad ya'll sound like you are traveling the world to see your kids and grandkids! I love you all and miss you tons!! thanks for all your love and support... keep the letters coming PLEASE!!!
con amor-
Hermana Katie Barber
Well last monday after I got done writing my e-mail we got a phone call from the A.P.'s saying that since there are only 5 hermanas in the whole mission who speak spanish and one is going home in a transfer and we are getting four new ones...(which mean we are all probably going to have to train) he was changing us all around to prepare for that. So we got that phone call about one in the afternoon and we had to be out of our apartment and to District meeting the next day by 10:30 am. It was crazy night of visiting tons of members and getting addresses/pictures and telling them all to pray that I come back!! ha ha... it would be fun to go back there when i know spanish tonz better. We said goodbye to some of our investigators but i didn't get to say goodbye to Eduardo because he was in Missouri working so we just called him and luckily he has met the other elders and knows people in the ward so i think he is goign to be okay. It is funny how attached you get to complete strangers and how much you come to love them and they love you. I was so sad to leave but everything happens for a reason. I spent probably three hours working on the AREA BOOK for the Elders that talks about all our investigators and potential investigators so that no one would fall through the cracks, I wrote up all our appointments we had already scheduled for the week plus put a sticky note on everyones teaching records to let them know exactly what we were going to teach and their background so hopefully we don't loose anyone that would have progressed... but the elders in my other district are amazing and I made them promise me they would at least get Eduardo baptized.. and it was really funny 'cause when I called to say bye to Eduardo I told him i had already gotten permission to come back for his baptism... ha ha and he doesn't even have a date but all he said was okay! ha ha Well the next day I went to district meeting, then to eat with my district. hermana Medlyn went to Grand Praire which is in the same Zone, like 15 minutes away into a threesome with hermana Christensen and Hermana Schulte... then the Missionaries from the Mission office Sister and Elder Hansen came and picked me up and took me to the mission office to meet with my new companion.... There were like seven sister there at the mission office doing transfers also and I met up with Hermana Richardson and then we came out to Carrollton,TX.... it is about 15 minutes away from the mission home and the temple so i'm realy close to downtown dallas. We have a HUGE area and cover a small part english and then all of it is spanish. We have a English Ward Dallas 6th... then a Spanish Branch, Sunbeck. I have loved the members in the English ward so far because there is a Chiropractic school called Parker here in Dallas so a lot of the members of the ward are young couples that just came here from BYU and they are so sweet..it's kinda like eating with mike and Kara... it's really fun. I went to church in English yesterday for the first time in almost 5 months which was actually really weird! and now we have to trade off teaching in english and spanish and i really CAN'T pray in english!! Which is probably a good sign with my spanish! Well the area has a lot of eternal investigators and part member families that have been worked with for YEARS so this week is going to be a lot of tracting to find new investigators especially english work and cleaning out the old investigators that aren't going anywhere. It will be good especially since my new companion and I work so well together. her name is Hermana Heather Richardson and she is 24 and from Woods Cross, UT. She has onlybeen out 6 months earlier than me and kinda has had a hard time learning spanish because she is dislexic but she is definitely better than me and can get her point across. She actually helps me in door contacts and I actually feel pretty confinant walking into lesson which is definitely a good change. We are growing and learning together which is also fun! Sorry I don't have any amazing spiritual stories this week... its kinda just been a week of getting to know everyone and the area which is huge.. all of Carrollton, Addison, Lewisville, and Coppell and it's a lot more ritzy then Irving was.. i never realized I was in such a ghetto part of Dallas before.. i loved it! But this area will be great also and I'm excited to meet new people and grow to love them as much as i love the people in Irving! With my new address... maybe only send letters there this week because we don't have hot water in our apartment and they have been promising to fix it for 8 months so we are moving to a new apartment maybe this week.. not sure!
It was good to hear that everyone seems to be doing great at home! i can't believe Jules is Two.. and that TemeKula Riley is turning 5 this week!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEKE!!! i hear my little nephew stewart is cuter than ever and I hope he still lets me snuggle him when I get home. Brad is still trying to find a wife...you better not even think about getting married till i get home! Mindy and Tales are still in their mushy gushy newlywed stage. Mom and Dad ya'll sound like you are traveling the world to see your kids and grandkids! I love you all and miss you tons!! thanks for all your love and support... keep the letters coming PLEASE!!!
con amor-
Hermana Katie Barber
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Probably my BEST SUNDAY so far!!
Hi familia and amigos!!!
This has been a great week and I have tons of fun stories for you all!!..especially you Hermana Brundage.. you are going to DIE at these updates!! Well we spent the first part of the week just tracting and I thoguht I was going to die from tracting the same appartment complexes for six weeks straight then it was like as we started driving around new apartment complexes were popping out of no where. We have found some really good places to tract that are really densely populated with hispanics and haven't been knocked much... We met some really great families and my week this week is filled with appointment with them so I pray they go somewhere. We are teaching a recent convert named Stacy Martinez who didn't really know much when she was baptized but it is amazing everytime we teach her she gets more and more and longs to learn. this week we taught her an awesome lesson about the five steps in the gospel.. faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end and we centered it around the atonement. I have never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson and the light went on in her head... she talked about how pure she felt at her baptism and then when we explain the holy ghost she was like.. "oh that's what they is?" then told us amazing stories about feeling the holy ghost in her life. i was hoping she would come to church this week since she has been in the hospital with some sort of flu... kinda like swine flu but she didn't show up to church yesterday because her boyfriend was in town from San Antonia.. so I've gotta get her there next sunday.
Friday and Sunday were the best days of the week though!! On Friday we started the day off with a interviews with President Smith and Training from him, Sister Smith, and the Zone leaders which was amazing. My interview with President Smith was such a boost for me... he has such confidence in me and when I talk to him I feel like I can reach the potential he thinks I can.. it was really good but kinda confusing at the same time because I guess in Hermana Medlyn's interview he asked her how she felt about doing English work and talked about doing mid transfer changes because she had been praying about it or something and in my interview said that this "experience" might be even shorter than I expect... so who knows, but Hermana Medlyn and I are actually doing pretty okay now... we are starting to figure out how to work together and I have grown in the last two weeks in ways I wouldn't have without this situation so I am actually realy thankful for it! The training we had was more like our mission council training about focusing on getting member to help "friendship" our investigators and creating the best experience for them possible. I love trainings because I get new ideas and get to see areas i can improve as a missionary. I also told President and Sister smith all about Mark coming in and they were super excited!! He wasn't on their list yet or new missionaries but they should be getting an updated one in a couple weeks... President Smith also wanted to know if Mark and his family were related to Derek or Wayne Metcalf from up north.. I guess Wayne was President Smith's old mission companion and good friend...just wondering.. but they are super excited to meet him. I talked him up so he better get ready!!
Right after training I got permission to go the Dallas Temple to the sealing of a family in our ward named Familia Corona... they were inactive for a long time and their daughter was just baptized in February.. they got sealed without two of their kids but it was still beautiful and my first sealing with kids involved.... This family is known as the " Missionary Family" and has pictures of missionaries hanging all over their living room... like shrines of missionaries... ha ha well there were 16 missionaries in the sealing... it was crazy. Then they took us to dinner afterwards. It was amazing thought inside the temple how much I thought about our family, we never went through that experience because thankfully mom and dad have lived worthy of their convenants but it really hit me that we are get to live together FOREVER!!! I can't wait.. thanks mommy and daddy for being married in the temple, for being worthy so I can have that amazing gift!!
Sunday was an amazing day though... we had SIX investigators at church!!! Hermana Medlyn was playing the piano for Sacrament meeting so it was up to me to get them all settled.. i dont think i've ever been so stressed and nervous in my life. We started teaching a family again that Hermana Brundage and I dropped because she was too sick and would never keep our appointments... her names is Maria Rico.. her daughters name is Maria Rico and she brought her nephew Hector Rico. Hermana Rodriguez, the Relief Society President who is AMAZING, picked them up for church, sat by them during sacrament meeting, took the kids to their classes, introduce Maria to friends to take her to class and relief society.. I didnt' even have to worry about her.. that is what fellowshipping should be, I couldn't have been happier. After Church I asked her how she felt and she loved it.. her little girl ran up to me after primary so exicited she had met two new friends and proudly said, "I now know how to PRAY!!", the nephew told me about the stuff he learned about Jesus Christ... it was so cool!!!
The other investigator that came to church.. (ready to freak out Hermana Brundage!!!) was EDUARDO HERNANDEZ!!!! He is the miracle man that Hermana Brundage and I found over a month and a 1/2 ago and he disappeared and Hermana Brundage saw him again the week before she left while she was on exchanges... well we went and taught him on the Fourth of July (Dad Hispanics don't really ever need a reason to have parties.. so they party just because its a holiday more than the celebrate the actual holiday i think!! ha ha) and during his lesson we talked about the Plan of Salvations and the steps to reach the celestial kingdom... he told us that he wants to be baptized and has wanted to since he went to the baptism he just feels like he is on the step of faith right now.... and wants to feel it more in his heart before he gets baptized. So i commited him like twelve times to come to church and started my fast that night that he would recieve his strong anwswer at church the next day.
Well he showed up to church on Sunday and i was SOOOOOOOOO excited to see him walk in the door I focused all my attention on him and forgot I was suppose to be waiting for antoher investigator named Hugo Garcia. Well I sat Eduardo next to a younger man in the ward and was explaining about Fast and Testimony meeting when Hugo walks in with the other elders and they set him on the other side of the member!! I explained everything to Eduardo as we went through the meeting and cute little kids bore their testimonies and the other testimonies were perfect and not about Crazy doctrines which i was happy... we read scriptures during sacrament, sang all the songs and even during Gospel Principle class he was flipping to the scriptures, participating... it was amazing. He went to Priesthood then after Priesthood I invited him to this testimony meeting/dinner thing with all the single adults in the ward and the missionaries since we were going there for dinner... it started at five and I didn't think he would come but I invited him anyway...(to be continued)back to Sacrament meeting... Hugo came to Sacrament meeting and sat by the member and I had asked the member previously to explain the sacrament and everythign to him... well he wasn't and I thought Hugo was completely confused and didn't like sacrament and I was really stressed when he just walked out after Sacrament and didn't come talk to us... After Sacrament meeting Elder Kelly our Zone leader comes up to us is like.. "So I was standing in the foyer and all of a sudden this male model with muscles buldging is walking down the hall and walks up to me asking where Hermana Barbie (that is what everyone calls me) is... ha ha.. where do you Hermanas go tracting anyway??" I was laughing so hard.. it's not our fault if they are the only ones who will listen to us!!! But anyway we called Hugo after church to see where he went and why he ran off.. and he told us he thought it was over but loved it... then he asked how you tell the difference between missionarys and members they were all in white shirts and ties and skirts... so we explained... then we told him visitors are always welcome and he asked how he can become not a visitor so we gladly explained baptism.. he have two appointments with him this week!!
Back to Eduardo.. So we are sitting at the single adults testimony meeting and he wasn't there so I didn't think he was going to show up.. then he walks in the door about ten minutes after it started.. at the very end of the meeting the people on either side of him had already bore their testimony and so Eduardo was like, "Well i guess it is my turn!!" I was SHOCKED!!! since this was the first time he had come to church adn around these people.... well my state of shocked turned into panic as he went off for 15 mintues telling these people a story i didn't really understand but I did understand the words tomar (to drink), embarressado (pregnant), policia (police), and matar (to kill!!)... yep don't even worry about it.. I was FREAKING OUT IN MY SEAT!!! and on top of that he was bawling... I didnt know what to do. Then after he was done everyone in the meeting welcomed him and told him he was right where he needed to be and Hermano Magana shared a powerful scripture about Jesus Christ being the only way to overcome his pain.. I guess the story he told was about him changing his life from being an alcoholic, a lady he was dating that was pregnant then her ex-husband came adn killed her two kids and how much pain he has been through and how he is ready to change his life. Then at the end of the story he said he has gone to many churches and didn't like them and now he has finally found a place he likes and feels welcome. He then sat and ate with everyone and when we left he was still there making friends.. I feel like my fast was definitely answered!!! He is not only spiritually converted but also socially converted... and after that meeting Hermano Magana the first counselor came up to us and said... He's ready to be baptized!! and I agree... he is amazing. The Lord really prepares people for us and I am seeing mircales in this area sprout up left and right I am I have felt joy this week that I have NEVER experienced in my life... yes the work is hard, yes I am exhausted, but Sunday made everything I've gone through, sacrificed, or lack of sleep so worth it!!
I hope you are all happy.. I hope Jule's birthday was wonderful.. and Thanks mom for the shirts they all fit AMAZING... and they are so cute. You are so good at shopping for me now mom!! I am the most stylish missionary out here.. ha ha.. love you.. and dad about your new grill and BBQ.. i'm so jealous I keep looking for that amazing Texas BBQ everyone talks about and can't find anything better than yours!! love you all and miss you!! please keep writing me!!
Con amor,
Hermana Barber!!!
This has been a great week and I have tons of fun stories for you all!!..especially you Hermana Brundage.. you are going to DIE at these updates!! Well we spent the first part of the week just tracting and I thoguht I was going to die from tracting the same appartment complexes for six weeks straight then it was like as we started driving around new apartment complexes were popping out of no where. We have found some really good places to tract that are really densely populated with hispanics and haven't been knocked much... We met some really great families and my week this week is filled with appointment with them so I pray they go somewhere. We are teaching a recent convert named Stacy Martinez who didn't really know much when she was baptized but it is amazing everytime we teach her she gets more and more and longs to learn. this week we taught her an awesome lesson about the five steps in the gospel.. faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end and we centered it around the atonement. I have never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson and the light went on in her head... she talked about how pure she felt at her baptism and then when we explain the holy ghost she was like.. "oh that's what they is?" then told us amazing stories about feeling the holy ghost in her life. i was hoping she would come to church this week since she has been in the hospital with some sort of flu... kinda like swine flu but she didn't show up to church yesterday because her boyfriend was in town from San Antonia.. so I've gotta get her there next sunday.
Friday and Sunday were the best days of the week though!! On Friday we started the day off with a interviews with President Smith and Training from him, Sister Smith, and the Zone leaders which was amazing. My interview with President Smith was such a boost for me... he has such confidence in me and when I talk to him I feel like I can reach the potential he thinks I can.. it was really good but kinda confusing at the same time because I guess in Hermana Medlyn's interview he asked her how she felt about doing English work and talked about doing mid transfer changes because she had been praying about it or something and in my interview said that this "experience" might be even shorter than I expect... so who knows, but Hermana Medlyn and I are actually doing pretty okay now... we are starting to figure out how to work together and I have grown in the last two weeks in ways I wouldn't have without this situation so I am actually realy thankful for it! The training we had was more like our mission council training about focusing on getting member to help "friendship" our investigators and creating the best experience for them possible. I love trainings because I get new ideas and get to see areas i can improve as a missionary. I also told President and Sister smith all about Mark coming in and they were super excited!! He wasn't on their list yet or new missionaries but they should be getting an updated one in a couple weeks... President Smith also wanted to know if Mark and his family were related to Derek or Wayne Metcalf from up north.. I guess Wayne was President Smith's old mission companion and good friend...just wondering.. but they are super excited to meet him. I talked him up so he better get ready!!
Right after training I got permission to go the Dallas Temple to the sealing of a family in our ward named Familia Corona... they were inactive for a long time and their daughter was just baptized in February.. they got sealed without two of their kids but it was still beautiful and my first sealing with kids involved.... This family is known as the " Missionary Family" and has pictures of missionaries hanging all over their living room... like shrines of missionaries... ha ha well there were 16 missionaries in the sealing... it was crazy. Then they took us to dinner afterwards. It was amazing thought inside the temple how much I thought about our family, we never went through that experience because thankfully mom and dad have lived worthy of their convenants but it really hit me that we are get to live together FOREVER!!! I can't wait.. thanks mommy and daddy for being married in the temple, for being worthy so I can have that amazing gift!!
Sunday was an amazing day though... we had SIX investigators at church!!! Hermana Medlyn was playing the piano for Sacrament meeting so it was up to me to get them all settled.. i dont think i've ever been so stressed and nervous in my life. We started teaching a family again that Hermana Brundage and I dropped because she was too sick and would never keep our appointments... her names is Maria Rico.. her daughters name is Maria Rico and she brought her nephew Hector Rico. Hermana Rodriguez, the Relief Society President who is AMAZING, picked them up for church, sat by them during sacrament meeting, took the kids to their classes, introduce Maria to friends to take her to class and relief society.. I didnt' even have to worry about her.. that is what fellowshipping should be, I couldn't have been happier. After Church I asked her how she felt and she loved it.. her little girl ran up to me after primary so exicited she had met two new friends and proudly said, "I now know how to PRAY!!", the nephew told me about the stuff he learned about Jesus Christ... it was so cool!!!
The other investigator that came to church.. (ready to freak out Hermana Brundage!!!) was EDUARDO HERNANDEZ!!!! He is the miracle man that Hermana Brundage and I found over a month and a 1/2 ago and he disappeared and Hermana Brundage saw him again the week before she left while she was on exchanges... well we went and taught him on the Fourth of July (Dad Hispanics don't really ever need a reason to have parties.. so they party just because its a holiday more than the celebrate the actual holiday i think!! ha ha) and during his lesson we talked about the Plan of Salvations and the steps to reach the celestial kingdom... he told us that he wants to be baptized and has wanted to since he went to the baptism he just feels like he is on the step of faith right now.... and wants to feel it more in his heart before he gets baptized. So i commited him like twelve times to come to church and started my fast that night that he would recieve his strong anwswer at church the next day.
Well he showed up to church on Sunday and i was SOOOOOOOOO excited to see him walk in the door I focused all my attention on him and forgot I was suppose to be waiting for antoher investigator named Hugo Garcia. Well I sat Eduardo next to a younger man in the ward and was explaining about Fast and Testimony meeting when Hugo walks in with the other elders and they set him on the other side of the member!! I explained everything to Eduardo as we went through the meeting and cute little kids bore their testimonies and the other testimonies were perfect and not about Crazy doctrines which i was happy... we read scriptures during sacrament, sang all the songs and even during Gospel Principle class he was flipping to the scriptures, participating... it was amazing. He went to Priesthood then after Priesthood I invited him to this testimony meeting/dinner thing with all the single adults in the ward and the missionaries since we were going there for dinner... it started at five and I didn't think he would come but I invited him anyway...(to be continued)back to Sacrament meeting... Hugo came to Sacrament meeting and sat by the member and I had asked the member previously to explain the sacrament and everythign to him... well he wasn't and I thought Hugo was completely confused and didn't like sacrament and I was really stressed when he just walked out after Sacrament and didn't come talk to us... After Sacrament meeting Elder Kelly our Zone leader comes up to us is like.. "So I was standing in the foyer and all of a sudden this male model with muscles buldging is walking down the hall and walks up to me asking where Hermana Barbie (that is what everyone calls me) is... ha ha.. where do you Hermanas go tracting anyway??" I was laughing so hard.. it's not our fault if they are the only ones who will listen to us!!! But anyway we called Hugo after church to see where he went and why he ran off.. and he told us he thought it was over but loved it... then he asked how you tell the difference between missionarys and members they were all in white shirts and ties and skirts... so we explained... then we told him visitors are always welcome and he asked how he can become not a visitor so we gladly explained baptism.. he have two appointments with him this week!!
Back to Eduardo.. So we are sitting at the single adults testimony meeting and he wasn't there so I didn't think he was going to show up.. then he walks in the door about ten minutes after it started.. at the very end of the meeting the people on either side of him had already bore their testimony and so Eduardo was like, "Well i guess it is my turn!!" I was SHOCKED!!! since this was the first time he had come to church adn around these people.... well my state of shocked turned into panic as he went off for 15 mintues telling these people a story i didn't really understand but I did understand the words tomar (to drink), embarressado (pregnant), policia (police), and matar (to kill!!)... yep don't even worry about it.. I was FREAKING OUT IN MY SEAT!!! and on top of that he was bawling... I didnt know what to do. Then after he was done everyone in the meeting welcomed him and told him he was right where he needed to be and Hermano Magana shared a powerful scripture about Jesus Christ being the only way to overcome his pain.. I guess the story he told was about him changing his life from being an alcoholic, a lady he was dating that was pregnant then her ex-husband came adn killed her two kids and how much pain he has been through and how he is ready to change his life. Then at the end of the story he said he has gone to many churches and didn't like them and now he has finally found a place he likes and feels welcome. He then sat and ate with everyone and when we left he was still there making friends.. I feel like my fast was definitely answered!!! He is not only spiritually converted but also socially converted... and after that meeting Hermano Magana the first counselor came up to us and said... He's ready to be baptized!! and I agree... he is amazing. The Lord really prepares people for us and I am seeing mircales in this area sprout up left and right I am I have felt joy this week that I have NEVER experienced in my life... yes the work is hard, yes I am exhausted, but Sunday made everything I've gone through, sacrificed, or lack of sleep so worth it!!
I hope you are all happy.. I hope Jule's birthday was wonderful.. and Thanks mom for the shirts they all fit AMAZING... and they are so cute. You are so good at shopping for me now mom!! I am the most stylish missionary out here.. ha ha.. love you.. and dad about your new grill and BBQ.. i'm so jealous I keep looking for that amazing Texas BBQ everyone talks about and can't find anything better than yours!! love you all and miss you!! please keep writing me!!
Con amor,
Hermana Barber!!!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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
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
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Almost Done With One Transfer!!
Hola from Irving, TX!! I can't believe I've almost been in Texas for 6 weeks and starting on my next transfer. My trainer who is amazing goes home in a week and I am super sad and super nervous for next transfer. I am guessing they are going to send another Hermana into this area with me instead of pulling me out... I would love to stay with all the members in this amazing ward but this area is really tough and that would make me the one familiar with the area which makes me really nervous.. but hey nada es imposible con Dios!! (Nothing is impossible with God!!) i know every situation just makes me stronger!! Just some quick notes... CONGRATS ON YOUR HANDSOME LITTLE GUY MIKE AND KARA!!! I am so happy he is healthy... y'all are going to be the best parents ever.. thanks for the pictures it made me feel a little closer
to you all!! Charlene and Matt??... how is everything in life?? how is everyone feeling? business? my cute little niece!! Mindy and Tales.. Hilton Head huh?? all you two do is have fun I swear!! Love you... And my little Brad... glad to be home huh?? WRITE ME!! Happy Birthday Nicole Kristan Anderson Mahoney... 21 TODAY!!! Wish I was there to party with you but I'm definitely there in spirit!! Kristan.... tell Chad I am so excited for him and I work with a couple people here from Honduras and they are so humble and amazing.. he is going to love it... start studying spanish now especially gospel words.. you will be happy you did once you get there.. maybe start reading a spanish Preach my Gospel with an english one.. it would help alot!! love you and can't wait to talk when we get back.. WRITE ME!! Whitney... i'm glad everything went amazing with the wedding and they are so happy!! About Travis!! AHHHHHH!!! i can't believe guys in his district got swine flu.. that was liek the running joke in the MTC that that place would be like an incubator if anyone got it.. i guess its not much of a joke now!! He has been there so long... I would like to write him a letter.. maybe brighten his spirits a little if you get a second to send me his e-mail!! I'll be praying for him!! my week has been a good week... most of our appointments weren't there when we got there so we spent a lot of time knocking doors.. and knocking wasn't even very sucessful this week but we had some fun things happen still.... Our miracle man for a couple weeks back Eduardo disappeared a couple weeks ago.. his number was changed, his truck was no where to be found, and no one answered his appartments.. we thought he had gotten deported and were super sad.. then this week were teaching a lesson at his apartment and he pulled in!! He found work in Missouri so he is there all week comes home on Friday night then leaves again Sunday morning. We haven't gotten the opportunity to teach him again but i'm happy that he is still around so we can in the future teach him.. he really is golden. The hardest thing about working with hispanics is there amazing work ethic though.. they are never home.. and it is so hard to try to have someone change their priorities from just trying to meet their needs to putting God first and having faith they will help them meet their needs. We are still meeting with the Moreno Family and they are also amazing.. they went to church last week and cub scouts plus we taught them twice and finally got the opportunity to teach the dad who was super receptive. The only problem with them is they come to church but at 2 instead of 1 because of her work and they miss sacrament meeting which means they technically aren't progressing!! So we have to talk to them about that this week! On Wednesday night we knocked some doors then were heading to a lesson with a new member named Stacy Martinez... as soon as we got in the car it started raining really hard, lightening, thundering, and the wind started blowing really hard... Hna. Brundage said if it was too bad for us to be working the office would call us so we just kept driving. Then we were parked at a stoplight at all of a sudden we see Palentaros (hispanic ice cream men here that walk around pushing like fridges and ringing bells.) running for cover and the sirens for tornado warning for the city started going off!! it was actually a really eiry sound/sight... but we just kept on driving to our appointment because we didnt' get any kind of phone call.. we got the members door and knocked.. and she anwsered in shock... ha ha.. then she told us there were tornadoes on the other side of the freeway from our area!! ha ha.. well no need to waste time so we taught her a lesson anyway.. it was actually a blessing in disguss because no one was around when the house is usally SUPER loud and distracting and it was the most important lesson we had to teach her... the spirit was so strong and she finally understood the magnitude of her baptismal covenant and the necessity to obey certain commandments.. it is amazing how the lord's tender mercies come!! By the time the lesson was done it wasn't even raining anymore and we drove home.. but then the storm came back and lasted for over 24 hours! nothing compares to texas storms! On Friday I actually had the opportunity to go on an exchange in a different area called Grand Praire.. and I actually went with Hermana Schulte the one I thought was going to be my trainer in the first place and Hermana Christensen came to Iriving.. It was weird to serve in a suceessful area for a day!! HA HA!! We had teaching appointments all day and we only knocked on doors for like 30 minutes. It was a fun exchange and I learned a lot of Hermana Schulte.. she is very knowledgable about the Bible and a great missionary. We did study time in our own areas and Hermana Schulte just called me the night before to tell me about the lessons we would be teaching kinda what i needed to study... i had no clue who the investigators were or what was goign on in their life... but i felt
impressed to study the need for the Book of Mormon and not just the Bible. That night we were sitting in a lesson with a man named Freddy who honestly knows the gospel is true just won't act on it.. we were reading in the Book of Mormon with him and he looked at us and said, "Why do I need the Book of Mormon even if it is the word of God I have the Bible that says pretty much the same thing." Eveything I had studied came back to me in that very moment... it was amazing.. and how if we listen to the spirit and stay worthy of the spirit.. he will guide us in every aspect of this work... We truly are instruments in the Lords hands!! This morning we went to get our hair cut by a lady in the ward and she ended up highlight Hermana Brundage's hair and cutting it... I even let her trim my hair.. then she gave us like all this nice shampoo and product when we told her NO and tried to pay her. She is a single mom, trying to support her and her little girl by being a hairdresser... super hard life....These people love us.. she looked at us and said the way we were goign to pay her back was by letting her and her little girl come to our weddings!! ha ha... way far off but I love these people already and want to stay close to them forever!! I am so happy i am serving here... Yes they are poor.. and all i see is ghetto, poor Texas but they are so humble, and so much more receptive then all other races here!!! I love it!! Thanks for all your support, love and prayers... Please continue to keep in touch!! love you!
con amor,
Hermana Katie Barber
to you all!! Charlene and Matt??... how is everything in life?? how is everyone feeling? business? my cute little niece!! Mindy and Tales.. Hilton Head huh?? all you two do is have fun I swear!! Love you... And my little Brad... glad to be home huh?? WRITE ME!! Happy Birthday Nicole Kristan Anderson Mahoney... 21 TODAY!!! Wish I was there to party with you but I'm definitely there in spirit!! Kristan.... tell Chad I am so excited for him and I work with a couple people here from Honduras and they are so humble and amazing.. he is going to love it... start studying spanish now especially gospel words.. you will be happy you did once you get there.. maybe start reading a spanish Preach my Gospel with an english one.. it would help alot!! love you and can't wait to talk when we get back.. WRITE ME!! Whitney... i'm glad everything went amazing with the wedding and they are so happy!! About Travis!! AHHHHHH!!! i can't believe guys in his district got swine flu.. that was liek the running joke in the MTC that that place would be like an incubator if anyone got it.. i guess its not much of a joke now!! He has been there so long... I would like to write him a letter.. maybe brighten his spirits a little if you get a second to send me his e-mail!! I'll be praying for him!! my week has been a good week... most of our appointments weren't there when we got there so we spent a lot of time knocking doors.. and knocking wasn't even very sucessful this week but we had some fun things happen still.... Our miracle man for a couple weeks back Eduardo disappeared a couple weeks ago.. his number was changed, his truck was no where to be found, and no one answered his appartments.. we thought he had gotten deported and were super sad.. then this week were teaching a lesson at his apartment and he pulled in!! He found work in Missouri so he is there all week comes home on Friday night then leaves again Sunday morning. We haven't gotten the opportunity to teach him again but i'm happy that he is still around so we can in the future teach him.. he really is golden. The hardest thing about working with hispanics is there amazing work ethic though.. they are never home.. and it is so hard to try to have someone change their priorities from just trying to meet their needs to putting God first and having faith they will help them meet their needs. We are still meeting with the Moreno Family and they are also amazing.. they went to church last week and cub scouts plus we taught them twice and finally got the opportunity to teach the dad who was super receptive. The only problem with them is they come to church but at 2 instead of 1 because of her work and they miss sacrament meeting which means they technically aren't progressing!! So we have to talk to them about that this week! On Wednesday night we knocked some doors then were heading to a lesson with a new member named Stacy Martinez... as soon as we got in the car it started raining really hard, lightening, thundering, and the wind started blowing really hard... Hna. Brundage said if it was too bad for us to be working the office would call us so we just kept driving. Then we were parked at a stoplight at all of a sudden we see Palentaros (hispanic ice cream men here that walk around pushing like fridges and ringing bells.) running for cover and the sirens for tornado warning for the city started going off!! it was actually a really eiry sound/sight... but we just kept on driving to our appointment because we didnt' get any kind of phone call.. we got the members door and knocked.. and she anwsered in shock... ha ha.. then she told us there were tornadoes on the other side of the freeway from our area!! ha ha.. well no need to waste time so we taught her a lesson anyway.. it was actually a blessing in disguss because no one was around when the house is usally SUPER loud and distracting and it was the most important lesson we had to teach her... the spirit was so strong and she finally understood the magnitude of her baptismal covenant and the necessity to obey certain commandments.. it is amazing how the lord's tender mercies come!! By the time the lesson was done it wasn't even raining anymore and we drove home.. but then the storm came back and lasted for over 24 hours! nothing compares to texas storms! On Friday I actually had the opportunity to go on an exchange in a different area called Grand Praire.. and I actually went with Hermana Schulte the one I thought was going to be my trainer in the first place and Hermana Christensen came to Iriving.. It was weird to serve in a suceessful area for a day!! HA HA!! We had teaching appointments all day and we only knocked on doors for like 30 minutes. It was a fun exchange and I learned a lot of Hermana Schulte.. she is very knowledgable about the Bible and a great missionary. We did study time in our own areas and Hermana Schulte just called me the night before to tell me about the lessons we would be teaching kinda what i needed to study... i had no clue who the investigators were or what was goign on in their life... but i felt
impressed to study the need for the Book of Mormon and not just the Bible. That night we were sitting in a lesson with a man named Freddy who honestly knows the gospel is true just won't act on it.. we were reading in the Book of Mormon with him and he looked at us and said, "Why do I need the Book of Mormon even if it is the word of God I have the Bible that says pretty much the same thing." Eveything I had studied came back to me in that very moment... it was amazing.. and how if we listen to the spirit and stay worthy of the spirit.. he will guide us in every aspect of this work... We truly are instruments in the Lords hands!! This morning we went to get our hair cut by a lady in the ward and she ended up highlight Hermana Brundage's hair and cutting it... I even let her trim my hair.. then she gave us like all this nice shampoo and product when we told her NO and tried to pay her. She is a single mom, trying to support her and her little girl by being a hairdresser... super hard life....These people love us.. she looked at us and said the way we were goign to pay her back was by letting her and her little girl come to our weddings!! ha ha... way far off but I love these people already and want to stay close to them forever!! I am so happy i am serving here... Yes they are poor.. and all i see is ghetto, poor Texas but they are so humble, and so much more receptive then all other races here!!! I love it!! Thanks for all your support, love and prayers... Please continue to keep in touch!! love you!
con amor,
Hermana Katie Barber
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
3 Semana
Hola!!!
Well this week has been jammed pack with goodness and fun!! I have seen the Lord's hand in every aspect of this work and I am amazed daily at the miracles here in Texas!! First off... Mom and Dad HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!I love you both so much and hope you are so happy!! thanks for being the best parents EVER!! And Amber Nicole Varley Every I hope you have the BEST 21st Birthday.. wish I was there! Landy Jane I'm still waiting for that long DETAILED letter but thanks for the little note so I know you are still alive. Lacee Lee I also got your letter (and e-mail.. he he he) I started your letter already so I'll send it out today.. Give Beck and Teme a HUGE hug for me! Did anyone go to logan and Dani's wedding?? If not Whitney please give them hugs for me and tell them I wish them all the happiness in the world and I'm so excited for them! P.S. whit how is Travis doing?? He should have just gotten to Mexico if I am thinking right! Mike and Kara I'm getting so excited for ya'll!! Three weeks and counting till little Stewart huh?? I bet your are so anxious... I can't wait to see pictures... give him a hug and a kiss for me and tell him his aunty Katie loves his face! Matt...BYU huh?? wow do I not deserve all the crap I got when I went there! How is the house searching going? How is my sweet little (tall) Jules? Bean how are you feeling with the little baby in your tummy?? Mindy and Tales.. i love you! Nothing sounds really new in your lives but I still pray for you daily. Bradley B...how is Chicago.. I was thinking about what to send you for your birthday the other day and then I saw this perfect sticker on the back of a truck and since i know you love stickers on your car i'm gonna find you one.. it says HIGH CLASS WHITE TRASH!! ha ha.. (love you!)mom thinks you need to get married she said and don't worry about it.. i found you a wife already and she comes home from her mission in four weeks!! Her name is Jessica Brundage and she is my AMAZING trainer... and plus she is already writing mom just to get on her good side (ha ha... she wants to kill me right now!! ha ha) But really on Saturday we go to the mailbox to get letters and I was so excited to see who I had letters from because you don't get some for a couple days and i open the mailbox and there is a letter from MY MOM.. to MY COMPANION!! thanks mom!! ha ha This week has been amazing I don't even know if I am going to be able to do it justice with this e-mail but I will try. So last week was a really really tough week then to make a great ending to the week we met with the Bishop of the spanish ward and he doesn' t like Hermana let's just say and kinda told us we were worthless for an hour and my trainer was crying.. i don't know how to speak spanish so I couldn't really do anything.. lets just say it was a rough day. So we decided that we were going to work our tails off this week so no matter what he said to us on Sunday we knew that we did our best and God knew we did our best. So Monday after P-day we had some appointments at these one appartments and one of our appointments weren't there so we went to visit some other families we know in the apartment complex. After visiting we started walking home and Hna. Brundage stopped us and said we should walk the other way... the long way.. so we did and right as we rounded the corner there was Eduardo sitting on his truck bed just smiling at us. We started talking to him and he is GOLDEN. We met him a week ago and we have already taught him twice and he came to a baptism on Saturday and we have already commited him to work towards baptism on June 20th...He is just searching for the truth and it is sooooo cool to hear him talk about how good he feels and how he doesn't feel alone for the first time in a long time. This gospel changes lives! But Satan is also so aware of the work we are doing.. Eduardo never works on Sunday and yesterday we called him to see where he was for church and he said they had all of a sudden called him into work. That is the hardest thing about teaching hispanics is they have the best work ethic ever.. always working which means they are never home for us to teach or can't come to church! That is the problem with another family we are teaching the Ibarra Family.. they are so cute and they read the scriptures everyday and pray as a family.. the only thing that is keeping them from becoming progressing investigators is the parents have work on Sunday and won't let there kids come with out them. They don't have the faith to quit and let God take care of them...To our appointments with the Ibarra's and Eduardo's we invited the Relief Society president Hermana Rodriguez who is so super cute. Well she showed up with her little girl also named Daniela who is 8! Daniela gets out of the truck with a FUTURE MISSIONARY tag on and her scripture case. During the lessons she said either the openning or closing prayer, read scriptures, and even bore her testimony. I have never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson ever! It is amazing how this church blesses families. Kids grow up with knowledge that practically no gown adult even knows about the love of their Heavenly Father, the power of the Atonement, and who they are meant to become! On Friday this week we went to visit a member (Claudia Moran) to talk to her about a referral she had given us and we showed up and she was surrounded by mounds of pictures so we offered to help her out for a little while. Which was good because we hadn't done a service activity for the week yet. But I was so humbled listening to her life. She told us of how she crossed the border, how her ex-husband is in jail, she can't get child support from him because he is not a citizen, she has been looking for work for months and finally got a job at Taco Bell, she is raising two little kids all on her own, and she just got into remission for Breast cancer... then to top all of it off she tells us she just qualified for food stamps and wanted to know what OUR favorite food was so she could get stuff we could eat... the members and really so loving and would give you the shirt off their back even if it was their last one. We of course assured her we had food and to spend them on her kids but really that type of love and charity is so humbling. Talking about member feeding us I had my favorite food ever this week at familia Segovia's... it was chicken tostada's and then for dessert we got BLUE BELL ice cream.. amazing.. and we never get dessert here because the hispanics give you a piece of fruit for dessert..!! not then I really feel like eating it much because i am so stuffed by the end of the meal! Another fun meal with members happened on Sunday. We went to the familia Orozco's house with the Segovia's and the other four spanish Elders. They were fixing dinner and we didn't think anything was up until they started setting up the video camera and I was super confused... then we had me and Hermana Brundage sit in certain seats... ha ha then they brought out our food and everything on my plate was dyed GREEN!! it was my GREENIE breakfast... green pancakes, eggs, milk, and orange juice.. it was so cute of them and I was laughing so hard. Then they brought out Hermana Brundage's food and it was all dyed RED since she is STOPPING her mission! They were so
cute and I love these families.. they loves us! Well Texas is really filled with such interesting people. I used to hate knocking doors and talking to random people but now I love it... honestly you never know what character will appear behind the next door especially since my area is not very densely hispanic populated I get all sorts of funny people that speak all sorts of fun languages... and yes Texan is the hardest to understand! ha ha... but while we are knocking doors I really try to listen to the phrases Hermana Brundage says then use them on the next doors. Well it was really hot, I was tired and obviously not really thinking and we walked up to this door and knocked I said we were missionaries, asked the ladies name, then said, "Soy la Hermana Brundage..." then Hermana Brundage looked at me and said, "Soy la Hermana Brundage tambien?" ha ha I was laughing so hard luckily the lady told us later she couldn't read but I think she was really confused! Other fun things about being in Texas is that we get to work with people from all different cultures.. mainly from Mexico and El Salvador but also Argentina, Honduras, Peru... it is fun! I get to try different foods and hear differend dialects. Just two more stories to show how much the Lord's hand is in this work... On Saturday night we were running to get gas right before we had to be home for the night... we weren't going to stop but we thought we should better be safe then sorry! Well we got gas and our reciept didn't print so we had to go inside to get it. We started talking to the lady behind the counter and of course she asked what our tags were for.. we told her the church name and said, "Oh are you the church that gives out free dvd's.." and we said yes and she continued to tell us how she had an appointment with missionaries to get her dvd and is really interested and the missionaries never came!! We gave her the dvd then got her information for the english elders.. but the Lord really puts people in our path constantly everyday ready to hear this message. Well at the beginning of the week we decided we wanted to find a familiy and bring them to church that Sunday so we drew a picture of them on our whiteboard at church and wrote familia desconocido..(family unknown).. so every prayer we prayed for this family to come to church and all week long knocking doors we would say okay.. this is our family and we never found a solid family to come to church on sunday but we still had faith we wouldn't find them even till Saturday night... well church came and we were a little disappointed because not even Eduardo showed up and we just said oh well... definitely next week. Then we are sitting in a combined Priesthood and Relief Society class with five minutes left and one of the other spanish elder's slide on the bench looks at me and whispers "Follow Me".. I was super confused but we did.. then we got into the lobby and all he said was "Go get 'em.. there is an investigator waiting for you outside." We walked out of the church to a family... Mom, Dad, and four kids talking to the Primary Presidency already... saying they were coming to mutaul on Tuesday. We made an appointment with them and found out they are friends with the Segovia Family so they already have a fellowship family too!! Heavenly Father brought our family to church.. an even better and bigger family then we had drawn on the board at our appartment. Familia desconocido's name is Familia Morano! Really faith and prayers bring about miracles in this work! God has prepared people just for us to reach and brought me to Texas at this specific time to meet specific people. I know this gospel is true and when we truly understand it and who we are and the power of the Atonement it can change any life! I am so happy to be here as a representative of Jesus Christ... and no it is not easy at all.. it is actually the hardest thing i've done in my life. But like Elder Holland said how can I expect to call myself a servant of Jesus Christ one of his soliders and not expect to go through even a little bit of what he went through! This is the most rewarding thing I have done.. It is a different kind of Joy... I've never been so happy to hear someone else pray, feel the love of Christ, or walk into the church an dfeel the power of the spirit! Please pray for my investigators... Eduardo, Familia Ibarra, and Familia Morano especially!! I love you all and appreciate your love, support and prayers!!
con amor-
Hermana Katie Barber
Well this week has been jammed pack with goodness and fun!! I have seen the Lord's hand in every aspect of this work and I am amazed daily at the miracles here in Texas!! First off... Mom and Dad HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!I love you both so much and hope you are so happy!! thanks for being the best parents EVER!! And Amber Nicole Varley Every I hope you have the BEST 21st Birthday.. wish I was there! Landy Jane I'm still waiting for that long DETAILED letter but thanks for the little note so I know you are still alive. Lacee Lee I also got your letter (and e-mail.. he he he) I started your letter already so I'll send it out today.. Give Beck and Teme a HUGE hug for me! Did anyone go to logan and Dani's wedding?? If not Whitney please give them hugs for me and tell them I wish them all the happiness in the world and I'm so excited for them! P.S. whit how is Travis doing?? He should have just gotten to Mexico if I am thinking right! Mike and Kara I'm getting so excited for ya'll!! Three weeks and counting till little Stewart huh?? I bet your are so anxious... I can't wait to see pictures... give him a hug and a kiss for me and tell him his aunty Katie loves his face! Matt...BYU huh?? wow do I not deserve all the crap I got when I went there! How is the house searching going? How is my sweet little (tall) Jules? Bean how are you feeling with the little baby in your tummy?? Mindy and Tales.. i love you! Nothing sounds really new in your lives but I still pray for you daily. Bradley B...how is Chicago.. I was thinking about what to send you for your birthday the other day and then I saw this perfect sticker on the back of a truck and since i know you love stickers on your car i'm gonna find you one.. it says HIGH CLASS WHITE TRASH!! ha ha.. (love you!)mom thinks you need to get married she said and don't worry about it.. i found you a wife already and she comes home from her mission in four weeks!! Her name is Jessica Brundage and she is my AMAZING trainer... and plus she is already writing mom just to get on her good side (ha ha... she wants to kill me right now!! ha ha) But really on Saturday we go to the mailbox to get letters and I was so excited to see who I had letters from because you don't get some for a couple days and i open the mailbox and there is a letter from MY MOM.. to MY COMPANION!! thanks mom!! ha ha This week has been amazing I don't even know if I am going to be able to do it justice with this e-mail but I will try. So last week was a really really tough week then to make a great ending to the week we met with the Bishop of the spanish ward and he doesn' t like Hermana let's just say and kinda told us we were worthless for an hour and my trainer was crying.. i don't know how to speak spanish so I couldn't really do anything.. lets just say it was a rough day. So we decided that we were going to work our tails off this week so no matter what he said to us on Sunday we knew that we did our best and God knew we did our best. So Monday after P-day we had some appointments at these one appartments and one of our appointments weren't there so we went to visit some other families we know in the apartment complex. After visiting we started walking home and Hna. Brundage stopped us and said we should walk the other way... the long way.. so we did and right as we rounded the corner there was Eduardo sitting on his truck bed just smiling at us. We started talking to him and he is GOLDEN. We met him a week ago and we have already taught him twice and he came to a baptism on Saturday and we have already commited him to work towards baptism on June 20th...He is just searching for the truth and it is sooooo cool to hear him talk about how good he feels and how he doesn't feel alone for the first time in a long time. This gospel changes lives! But Satan is also so aware of the work we are doing.. Eduardo never works on Sunday and yesterday we called him to see where he was for church and he said they had all of a sudden called him into work. That is the hardest thing about teaching hispanics is they have the best work ethic ever.. always working which means they are never home for us to teach or can't come to church! That is the problem with another family we are teaching the Ibarra Family.. they are so cute and they read the scriptures everyday and pray as a family.. the only thing that is keeping them from becoming progressing investigators is the parents have work on Sunday and won't let there kids come with out them. They don't have the faith to quit and let God take care of them...To our appointments with the Ibarra's and Eduardo's we invited the Relief Society president Hermana Rodriguez who is so super cute. Well she showed up with her little girl also named Daniela who is 8! Daniela gets out of the truck with a FUTURE MISSIONARY tag on and her scripture case. During the lessons she said either the openning or closing prayer, read scriptures, and even bore her testimony. I have never felt the spirit so strong in a lesson ever! It is amazing how this church blesses families. Kids grow up with knowledge that practically no gown adult even knows about the love of their Heavenly Father, the power of the Atonement, and who they are meant to become! On Friday this week we went to visit a member (Claudia Moran) to talk to her about a referral she had given us and we showed up and she was surrounded by mounds of pictures so we offered to help her out for a little while. Which was good because we hadn't done a service activity for the week yet. But I was so humbled listening to her life. She told us of how she crossed the border, how her ex-husband is in jail, she can't get child support from him because he is not a citizen, she has been looking for work for months and finally got a job at Taco Bell, she is raising two little kids all on her own, and she just got into remission for Breast cancer... then to top all of it off she tells us she just qualified for food stamps and wanted to know what OUR favorite food was so she could get stuff we could eat... the members and really so loving and would give you the shirt off their back even if it was their last one. We of course assured her we had food and to spend them on her kids but really that type of love and charity is so humbling. Talking about member feeding us I had my favorite food ever this week at familia Segovia's... it was chicken tostada's and then for dessert we got BLUE BELL ice cream.. amazing.. and we never get dessert here because the hispanics give you a piece of fruit for dessert..!! not then I really feel like eating it much because i am so stuffed by the end of the meal! Another fun meal with members happened on Sunday. We went to the familia Orozco's house with the Segovia's and the other four spanish Elders. They were fixing dinner and we didn't think anything was up until they started setting up the video camera and I was super confused... then we had me and Hermana Brundage sit in certain seats... ha ha then they brought out our food and everything on my plate was dyed GREEN!! it was my GREENIE breakfast... green pancakes, eggs, milk, and orange juice.. it was so cute of them and I was laughing so hard. Then they brought out Hermana Brundage's food and it was all dyed RED since she is STOPPING her mission! They were so
cute and I love these families.. they loves us! Well Texas is really filled with such interesting people. I used to hate knocking doors and talking to random people but now I love it... honestly you never know what character will appear behind the next door especially since my area is not very densely hispanic populated I get all sorts of funny people that speak all sorts of fun languages... and yes Texan is the hardest to understand! ha ha... but while we are knocking doors I really try to listen to the phrases Hermana Brundage says then use them on the next doors. Well it was really hot, I was tired and obviously not really thinking and we walked up to this door and knocked I said we were missionaries, asked the ladies name, then said, "Soy la Hermana Brundage..." then Hermana Brundage looked at me and said, "Soy la Hermana Brundage tambien?" ha ha I was laughing so hard luckily the lady told us later she couldn't read but I think she was really confused! Other fun things about being in Texas is that we get to work with people from all different cultures.. mainly from Mexico and El Salvador but also Argentina, Honduras, Peru... it is fun! I get to try different foods and hear differend dialects. Just two more stories to show how much the Lord's hand is in this work... On Saturday night we were running to get gas right before we had to be home for the night... we weren't going to stop but we thought we should better be safe then sorry! Well we got gas and our reciept didn't print so we had to go inside to get it. We started talking to the lady behind the counter and of course she asked what our tags were for.. we told her the church name and said, "Oh are you the church that gives out free dvd's.." and we said yes and she continued to tell us how she had an appointment with missionaries to get her dvd and is really interested and the missionaries never came!! We gave her the dvd then got her information for the english elders.. but the Lord really puts people in our path constantly everyday ready to hear this message. Well at the beginning of the week we decided we wanted to find a familiy and bring them to church that Sunday so we drew a picture of them on our whiteboard at church and wrote familia desconocido..(family unknown).. so every prayer we prayed for this family to come to church and all week long knocking doors we would say okay.. this is our family and we never found a solid family to come to church on sunday but we still had faith we wouldn't find them even till Saturday night... well church came and we were a little disappointed because not even Eduardo showed up and we just said oh well... definitely next week. Then we are sitting in a combined Priesthood and Relief Society class with five minutes left and one of the other spanish elder's slide on the bench looks at me and whispers "Follow Me".. I was super confused but we did.. then we got into the lobby and all he said was "Go get 'em.. there is an investigator waiting for you outside." We walked out of the church to a family... Mom, Dad, and four kids talking to the Primary Presidency already... saying they were coming to mutaul on Tuesday. We made an appointment with them and found out they are friends with the Segovia Family so they already have a fellowship family too!! Heavenly Father brought our family to church.. an even better and bigger family then we had drawn on the board at our appartment. Familia desconocido's name is Familia Morano! Really faith and prayers bring about miracles in this work! God has prepared people just for us to reach and brought me to Texas at this specific time to meet specific people. I know this gospel is true and when we truly understand it and who we are and the power of the Atonement it can change any life! I am so happy to be here as a representative of Jesus Christ... and no it is not easy at all.. it is actually the hardest thing i've done in my life. But like Elder Holland said how can I expect to call myself a servant of Jesus Christ one of his soliders and not expect to go through even a little bit of what he went through! This is the most rewarding thing I have done.. It is a different kind of Joy... I've never been so happy to hear someone else pray, feel the love of Christ, or walk into the church an dfeel the power of the spirit! Please pray for my investigators... Eduardo, Familia Ibarra, and Familia Morano especially!! I love you all and appreciate your love, support and prayers!!
con amor-
Hermana Katie Barber
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Hola From TX!!
Hola mi Familia,
It was so good to hear from you!!! I love getting your letters and hearing all the funny stories from home. Thanks for you letter Kristan Anderson... so good to hear from you and all the updates about my friends!! ha ha.. i can't believe everyone is getting married as soon as i left.. it's like they didn't want me at the weddings.. j/k! That is awesome about Kara's boards.. congrats Kara.. you are so smart!! now here come your little boy!! can't wait for you both you're going to be amazign parents.. how did your trip go? Matt and Charlene... found a house yet?? I love that jules is starting her terrible twos.. keep telling me all the fun stories about getting locked in the basement. Good luck Bradley B. on your training.. dad's said your trainign to be a Papa John's managers but i'm hoping it is still for Jimmy Johns... ha ha... Miny and Tales life sounds really really lovely for ya'll and like everythign is working out PERFECTLY!!! Mom and dad you're life sounds quiet as usual but like you're doing some traveling and not being completely alone will everyone stopping by all the time!! I'm happy that you are forwarding these e-mails to aunt kay!! i don't have tons of time to write letters but i'm gonna try to write her a little something within the next couple weeks.. but make sure she knows i love her!! THanks for your letter Janene.. they always make my dad reading your poems or hearing
updates from your family!! Thanks!! Thanks for all the support from everyone.. i really do love you all and miss you so much. Mom forwarded me a letter this week from a letter that got sent to our home and it was so funny... Mom did you know what that letter was even!! It was from one of mindy's old mission companions named Kimberly Inglish.. or something... she sent me a letter she found that she somehow had from Mindy's mission... So i got a letter from Mindy on her mission.. to me while on my mission... Kinda ironic but cool! The letter was from when she was in Franca with a really hairy companion and I was laughing the whole time because I could finally realy relate!! Well this week was a lot of hard work. We did a lot of tracting.. knocking on doors which is really hard because our area is SO mixed and alot of other areas in Texas aren't. and since we are only allowed to teach in espanol we give a lot of referrals to the English Elders. This is definitely the "Buckle" of the Bible Belt... everyone either has their church or doesn't really want a church so I'm not gonna lie it has been difficult finding people to listen but we just keep trucking along.. or i guess i could say knocking along! We get fed every day by the members here which they are great but they make us eat so much.. we don't want to offend them... one day this week it was raining really hard so i had wrapped all my scriptures up in plastic bags so they wouldn't get wet.. so at dinner with a member we were soooo full and she was in the other room so i took my scriptures out of one of the bags and put like 5 tomales in the bag and hid them in my back pack.. my companion was laughing so hard but i just couldn't eat anymore. It is so weird here because whenever we go to a members to eat they NEVER eat with us.. they always serve the whole time so it's hard to get to know all the members.. and we were talking to a lady after dinner one night and she had just fed 6 missionaries and found out her husband has been out of work for two months and they have like no money.. they are such generous people and have such faith i am constantly amazed! On Thursday we had the opportunity to have interviews and training with President Smith and Sister Smith. He is so funny I can't even explain it. He did our training on DONUTS.. ha ha says every town in Texas is not a town with out a donut shop, Sonic Drive through and a dollar store. He talked about how fattening and tempting donuts are and how they never fill you up and you always have to eat like a dozen to even attempt to feel full and you never are.. He said the donut is like the world..it will never fill you and always leave you wanting more. During my interview with President he was so nice and we talked about how amzing my trainer is and how she is my strength and her smile always pushes me forward even into uncomfortable situations... and he said well learn all you can because someday soon you will be that for another missionary.. He has such confidence in me.. i hope I can live up to what he thinks I can be... Then Sister SMith gave me a hug when we were leaving and said, "We are so happy we got you!! Sorry I didn't call you this week to see how you were doing but i knew you would be doing perfectly fine!!" THey are just such sweet people that radiate their love and all you can do is laugh when you're around them!! I really love them already... Well my spanish comes more and more everyday but I still can't say close to as much as a I want to!! Please pray for me and for this area that we can start finding more success and people to listen to us! Thanks for all your support and love!! Miss you all... and HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!
con amor-
Hermama Katie Barber
It was so good to hear from you!!! I love getting your letters and hearing all the funny stories from home. Thanks for you letter Kristan Anderson... so good to hear from you and all the updates about my friends!! ha ha.. i can't believe everyone is getting married as soon as i left.. it's like they didn't want me at the weddings.. j/k! That is awesome about Kara's boards.. congrats Kara.. you are so smart!! now here come your little boy!! can't wait for you both you're going to be amazign parents.. how did your trip go? Matt and Charlene... found a house yet?? I love that jules is starting her terrible twos.. keep telling me all the fun stories about getting locked in the basement. Good luck Bradley B. on your training.. dad's said your trainign to be a Papa John's managers but i'm hoping it is still for Jimmy Johns... ha ha... Miny and Tales life sounds really really lovely for ya'll and like everythign is working out PERFECTLY!!! Mom and dad you're life sounds quiet as usual but like you're doing some traveling and not being completely alone will everyone stopping by all the time!! I'm happy that you are forwarding these e-mails to aunt kay!! i don't have tons of time to write letters but i'm gonna try to write her a little something within the next couple weeks.. but make sure she knows i love her!! THanks for your letter Janene.. they always make my dad reading your poems or hearing
updates from your family!! Thanks!! Thanks for all the support from everyone.. i really do love you all and miss you so much. Mom forwarded me a letter this week from a letter that got sent to our home and it was so funny... Mom did you know what that letter was even!! It was from one of mindy's old mission companions named Kimberly Inglish.. or something... she sent me a letter she found that she somehow had from Mindy's mission... So i got a letter from Mindy on her mission.. to me while on my mission... Kinda ironic but cool! The letter was from when she was in Franca with a really hairy companion and I was laughing the whole time because I could finally realy relate!! Well this week was a lot of hard work. We did a lot of tracting.. knocking on doors which is really hard because our area is SO mixed and alot of other areas in Texas aren't. and since we are only allowed to teach in espanol we give a lot of referrals to the English Elders. This is definitely the "Buckle" of the Bible Belt... everyone either has their church or doesn't really want a church so I'm not gonna lie it has been difficult finding people to listen but we just keep trucking along.. or i guess i could say knocking along! We get fed every day by the members here which they are great but they make us eat so much.. we don't want to offend them... one day this week it was raining really hard so i had wrapped all my scriptures up in plastic bags so they wouldn't get wet.. so at dinner with a member we were soooo full and she was in the other room so i took my scriptures out of one of the bags and put like 5 tomales in the bag and hid them in my back pack.. my companion was laughing so hard but i just couldn't eat anymore. It is so weird here because whenever we go to a members to eat they NEVER eat with us.. they always serve the whole time so it's hard to get to know all the members.. and we were talking to a lady after dinner one night and she had just fed 6 missionaries and found out her husband has been out of work for two months and they have like no money.. they are such generous people and have such faith i am constantly amazed! On Thursday we had the opportunity to have interviews and training with President Smith and Sister Smith. He is so funny I can't even explain it. He did our training on DONUTS.. ha ha says every town in Texas is not a town with out a donut shop, Sonic Drive through and a dollar store. He talked about how fattening and tempting donuts are and how they never fill you up and you always have to eat like a dozen to even attempt to feel full and you never are.. He said the donut is like the world..it will never fill you and always leave you wanting more. During my interview with President he was so nice and we talked about how amzing my trainer is and how she is my strength and her smile always pushes me forward even into uncomfortable situations... and he said well learn all you can because someday soon you will be that for another missionary.. He has such confidence in me.. i hope I can live up to what he thinks I can be... Then Sister SMith gave me a hug when we were leaving and said, "We are so happy we got you!! Sorry I didn't call you this week to see how you were doing but i knew you would be doing perfectly fine!!" THey are just such sweet people that radiate their love and all you can do is laugh when you're around them!! I really love them already... Well my spanish comes more and more everyday but I still can't say close to as much as a I want to!! Please pray for me and for this area that we can start finding more success and people to listen to us! Thanks for all your support and love!! Miss you all... and HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!
con amor-
Hermama Katie Barber
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