E-Mail #40
March 12th, 2012
Helllllooo everyone!!!
I hope you all had a really great week. Mine has not been that bad. Well if i wanted to look at it like that i could say it was bad, but i don't want to look at it like that! But i will fill you all in on the drama that went down last week! Well Monday was super weird. One of the couples we have been teaching has had some tough times and have not made the best choices as parents and ended up that they had their children taken away from them. Which was super heartbreaking, because they are great parents, just made some wrong choices that equaled bad consequences. So we lost 2 investigators that way, because we can not get involved in legal things like that, and they want us to stand their side for the court cases, which we can not do. So that was a tough thing. We also met our local EX-mayor, who USE to be Mormon, It was a very interesting conversation with him. It was a super interesting Monday in general. But Tuesday was the same. We had another appointment with one of our investigators at the crazy house, that didn't go to well, he just wasn't willing to listen, or to learn more. So it was a rough appointment, and every time we go into that place people come out of the wood works and say they are members, and they want to come back to church, and other people say they want to come to our church, its just a overwhelming place. But i have a really funny story for Tuesday, we saw one of our former investigators who we had a VERY spiritual experience with, and he has a seed planted DEEP in his heart, but he hasn't started coming to church yet because of different things. But he is still super nice to us, and likes seeing us. Well we were out and about and we saw him and pulled over and were talking to him, and while we were talking to him a BIRD POOPED ON HIS HEAD!!!! HAHAHA, we were laughing SO HARD!!! It was THE funniest thing ever! I was laughing so hard. I will never forget his face! I'm sure you can imagine what reaction a person would have when they discovered poop on their head! ahhahaha. SO funny! We had dinner with our regular Tuesday night family the HAMILTONS, they are so great. We found out that Sis. Hamilton hasn't ever seen the funny videos.....like 'can i have your number' and other ones. So her daughter pulled them up and had her watch them and it was super funny, so now we have even more jokes to share with them when we have dinner every Tuesday. haha. she loved it! Wednesday was a miracle day!!! MIRACLE DAY!!!! First off our district leader, who is not a very motivated person, and does not seem to EVER act like he cares, actually started to ACT like he cares! It was the most productive district meeting we have had in 6 weeks! Me and sister Larson were super thankful for his change in attitude, it makes us feel like we actually want to be there, rather than we HAVE to be there. Also on our miracle day, because we had lost and were loosing so many investigators we decided to do some finding. We prayed about where we needed to go, and looked at the map and choose a place. Here is the story:
So we go to were we are going to go tracting as inspired by our father in heaven. We pull over and there is a girl outside walking her dog, super cute little girl. We sit in the truck, and then pray before we go tracting
Then between Thursday and Friday we lost about 4 more investigators. because they were not choosing to progress or to act on the things we are inviting them to do, so we had to just cut the cord, and ask them to let us know when they are ready to continue to learn and come to church. It was rough to let them go, especially since they still have so much potential, but i don't think heavenly father wants us to use our time on someone who wont be keeping commitments, when we could spend our time finding someone who is ready to keep those commitments! Oh yea and this last week our members we live with, brother and sister Sperry went off to Hawaii!!! We are super jealous, we asked them to take us, but they didn't. So its weird to have the house so empty, but its fun too. Saturday we decided to again go tracting in a inspired place that we felt we can find someone who will listen to us and what we have to share. We found a street and went to work. The first door we went to, we found someone who listened to what we had to say, and took a pamphlet, and was willing to let us come back in a week or so to see if she liked the pamphlet. Then we also met a mom with 3 girls, she is married, but we didn't meet her husband. She has super strong faith and thought about serving a mission for her church, which is different than ours, but still way cool. She was willing to listen to what we had to say, and we told her about the temple open house and she seems excited to go! So it will be fun to see what happens there. We also found 2 more investigators, we were looking for someone who had met the missionaries before, we go to her house, and it seems empty. Well we ask the neighbor who is outside if anyone lives there, and she tells us where they moved to. So we went to their new house and met the mom and her daughter. We talked a lot about their faith, and how it has helped them through hard times and what their relationship with god is like. They were very nice and open with us. We asked them if they wanted to have us come back to talk with them some more, and they were willing, so we are excited to see where that goes! Another blessing from heavenly father! Yesterday was my HUMP DAY!!! WOOHOOO!!! sister Larson made it all special. She wrote a note to me on the mirror, made me breakfast. Then our dinner was with the GREAT deardeuff family, and we get out there and they have this white board that they decorated and wrote a big congrats on your half way mark on it.....it was super cute, and of course they made my favorite dessert, as sister Larson asked them to without me knowing. Cheesecake, with yummy sliced up strawberries in sauce to top it off!!! SOOO GOOOOD!!! It was funny sister Larson was making the cheesecake a surprise, but Sarah deardeuff didn't know it was a surprise, and she walked by me in church and was like, HEY....we made you cheesecake for desert! hahaha, sister Larson was like...AAHHHH.....hahah, it was so funny! surprise ruined, but still super good!
Now of course i must end with a super funny story from this morning. Well we are preparing breakfast and getting ready for our studies and sister Larson starts laughing because this bird outside keeps flying up and into the window, over and over again. So we both watched it and were laughing super hard, it just kept flying up and into our window over and over again, for no reason at all! i got a video of it, but i don't think i can email video's i will try though. It did that for over a hour.....we were laughing so hard, it just kept flying into the window. Dumb bird, but great for our entertainment! I hope the video sends because you will LOVE IT!!!
Well family and friends, that's all i have for today. I cant believe i am half way through my mission now, it is super weird. I am so thankful for the things i have been able to learn and experience since being a missionary. My testimony of the church has changed so much, and has become so strong. I have come to realize that as i live the gospel to the best of my abilities that i am the happiest and the most at peace. I know this church is true, i know that our Heavenly Father is so aware of us, and loves us so much, not as a general population, but he knows every single one of us. I have felt his love and knowledge of me over and over again. I have really come to know that he does have a plan for me, and that he is with me every step of this life, and that we will lead me to the places i need to be as i continue to stay worthy of him and his direction. I am so thankful for him and his plan, i am thankful that i can trust what he has in store for me, and as i continue to have that trust through everything. All the hard times wont be as hard, all the struggles wont be discouraging. This week could have just been awful, but it wasn't. We were blessed, we were showed over and over again that our father in heaven loves us, and knows how hard missionary work is. He knows how to help us and strengthen us.....as we let him! I am thankful for my family, who raised me in this church, who always taught us to go to church, i might not have always been there in my heart or in spirit, but because i had that habit of going to church i was able to hear my father in heavens prompting to serve a mission. I was able to be here and experience the changes that needed to happen in my heart and in my life as a missionary. I needed to learn to accept his will and to realize that by living HIS WILL i will be MORE blessed. The more i hold on to what I want, and less to what HE wants, the harder things are. But the more i let HIM guide and direct me, the MORE peace and happiness i feel. I know now more than ever that i will live EVERY step of the gospel the rest of my life. I will make mistake and i wont be perfect, but i will LIVE it.....because when i live it, everything else falls into place. I know that, from being a missionary and choosing to LIVE IT! I hope you all know that this church is true. I hope that you all are always continuing to grow and learn spiritually. I know that our father in heaven has blessings in his hands that he just WAITS to give us when we do what he asks! Don't be too selfish to receive those blessings, they are greater than you will ever know!
I love you so much!
Sister Brooke Barnum
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