E-Mail #59
July 30th, 2012
Hello everyone!!!
Hope you all have had a wonderful week, i sure have!!! ITS BEEN GREAT!!! well mostly this weekend has been great, everything else was average!! But a great weekend is all i ask for!
This week we got to help a less-active who has some hoarder tendencies clean her house, we are doing it phase by phase, we started with her living room, and made a great start, and she has continued to clean after we left which is even better! Also she is reading the Book of Mormon the first time through and racing me and sister park, she keeps pulling ahead of us, but we keep catching up! :) Its nice to help her get through it, she is continuing to get stronger and stronger spiritually! So that's always fun to see.
This week we also had interviews, i love meeting with our mission president, he is truly an inspired individual!! I was struggling the last week and asked him for a blessing and it was such a wonderful blessing!! I am so thankful for the priesthood that gives us so much comfort and enables us to stay strong and keep going. In the blessing i came to realize what my struggles have been since being here and its all related to anxiety! man that can get annoying, i just hadn't realized i was having so much anxiety, but during the blessing my father gave me the strength i need to keep going through the rest of my mission and to have that control over my anxiety. I have found it really interesting to realize how much anxiety i have had my whole life, i just never realized that was what was going on. So its pretty cool to continue to gain that self awareness to help me through those anxiety filled moments. But i have felt amazing, and hardly any anxiety since that blessing, its just so wonderful! I LOVE THE PRIESTHOOD!!!
Friday we had another mini missionary with us, which was fun. We also Friday had such a fun experience, we went to contact a part member family, the guy had voiced that he wanted to come back to church, we went to visit them and had such a wonderful spiritual experience! i love when that happens, when you know that our Father in Heaven just wants them to come closer to him, and he sends us as his way of reaching out to his children! I LOVE IT!! We also went and saw a couple we have been teaching, the Carters! They are super awesome, the husband is a graphic designer and made us t-shirts! I will send a picture of the shirts! He is so cool!!! Oh and his wife made a comment about how she is reading the bible, and then all the sudden said, and the Book of Mormon too! Both me and sister Parks mouth dropped open for i think AT LEAST 1 minute! We were so shocked, we both wanted to freatk out, but we kept calm and talked with her about it! This couple is so awesome, they are opening up and aksing questions and its just cool to see their knowledge grow and grow!
Now lets get to the best weekend ever!!!
SATURDAY!!!! We got up, i opened my way awesome birthday present that you all sent me! it was so fun to open all those balloons! Thank you for all your wonderful notes, i glued them in my journal! Then we were off to the temple!!!!! WOOHOO!! I was so excited to be in the temple, man it was such a wonderful experience, to be in there especially with all my junction city family! The dillons were just glowing the entire time they were in the temple! We also got to spend sooo much time in the celestial room. Between the endowment and sealing we all just spend time in the celestial room talking and oh man, it was just great to see all of them in their beautiful temple clothing, i for a moment pictured what it would be like in heaven, all of us together again, so happy to see each other, socializing, and hugging and catching up! Oh man, i know thats what it will be like! Then during their sealing, that is when i cried and cried. The spirit was so strong, to see them make that bond, to see how much they love each other. And to realize one day, thats where i will be! It was my first sealing ever to see and it was just sooo great! Then when their little girl came in, in her beautiful white dress, she was so darn cute!!! What a special day for them! Then it was lots of hugs goodbye and rushing back to odessa for a BAPTISM!!!!!
Oh man and the baptism, was super amazing!! I seriously love Rae, she is so wonderful, she is a very special daughter of God. She started to grow closer to him spiritually way before we even came into the picture, she started to make those changes way before we taught her, and it was just icing on the cake to see her make that convenant with her Father!! It was a very spiritual baptism. After we had some burgers and cupcakes(for my birthday) and blonde brownies(for sis parks late birthday) It was so fun, i have never been so full in my life, i think i was going to explode!! But in a good way. haha.
SUNDAY!!! Rae got confirmed a member of the chuch, again another glowing experience! She is just so amazing! I love seeing her make those changes. Then we went to an appointment with a woman we have been teaching her name is Julia, at first when we met her we didn't think things would go that far, but every time we met things got better and better. Well yesterday we were having such a wonderful spiritual appointment with her as we talked about the plan of salvation. As the spirit was so strong sister park knew we needed to invite her to be baptized, and she said YES, and is working toward the first weekend in september to be baptized!!! It was such a shocker, i love those moment when you know that Heavenly Father had a plan, and you didn't know what it was, but you just followed the spirit to do what he needed you to do! Julia has learned from a lot of missionaries and now its her time to make those changes and that promise with her Father in Heaven. Oh man! It was just so great to be with her and to have that experience!!
So yea, that is the highlights of the weekend of AWESOMENESS!!!! Its been such a great weekend and i am so thankful for the spirit being so strong this weekend! I am thankful to help others progress toward baptism! I love doing the lords work! Its such a awesome thing to do!!! I hope you all have a wonderful week!!!
LOVE YOU LOTS!!!
Sis. Barnum
