E-Mail #46

E-Mail #46

April 24th, 2012

 

 

 

Hello all!!!

 

I hope you have all had a great week. Mine has been not to bad. Update on the tooth pain that caused my email last week to be horrible. I went to the dentist and ended up having a root canal. No shocker there!! i hate having bad teeth, but its just become a part of life....i figure give it another year or two and almost all teeth will have a root canal in them and then i dont have to worry as much! haha.

 

This last week was possibly THE BEST EVER working at the temple. My wonderful family the Flippo's surprised me and showed up to the temple on wednesday! It was the best surprise EVER!!! I was walking out to go get some more medicine for my tooth ache and i heard this HEY, so i turned around and i saw bill and shawn and nathan standing there. I of course ran to them and gave them a huge HUG....even bill, i didnt care i figure there were enough people around to know it was not an inapropriate hug! I got all teary-eyed as i was giving them hugs, and i had to wait for char to come, she took hunter to the bathroom. Well then they got put onto their tour and i had to go back to work. But my awesome companion suggested to me that i ask if i can go on the tour with them. So i asked elder and sister Jensen, who are in charge of us missionaries at the open house, and they gave me permission!!! i was SO EXCITED!! of course i ran right off and joined them! It was so special to be with them in the temple, i am so excited for a year from now to be in the temple with them again and see them become an eternal family!! ahhhh, I LOVE THE FLIPPOS!!! One of my favorite parts about being with them, as we were walking to the temple shawn came up to me and was walking next me and all the sudden he was just like....'man, i miss you'.......isn't that THE BEST?! awww, he is such a cutie, so i gave all of them big big hugs. They are going to be moving to south carloina in about a month. So i probably wont be seeing them until i can head out there.....but i figure when i get off my mission i get a free for all on phone calls, so i'll be staying in touch no matter what!

 

This week we have spend a lot of time with the weed family, helping Mayanna prepare for baptism and helping her feel ready to be baptized. I am so excited we have a baptism this week! Mayanna will be getting baptized on sunday and it is going to be such a special day. She is such a special girl. Everytime we teach her i can just feel the spirit so strong. I really know she has a big purpose in this life and she is a special daughter of our Heavenly Father. She is so great. I dont know if i told you this already but she is 9, and she has been reading the for stregnth of youth pamphlet....that is for teenagers. She just loves reading and learning. I am so excited to help her make this step closer to hear Father in Heaven....then she can contiue to grow so much spiritually it will be SO GREAT!

 

 

Friday was fun last week. We went through the temple with our regular tuesday night family! The Hamiltons! It was so fun to go through the temple with them. Its the first temple for mostly all of them to go inside and it was such a great experience. I am so thankful that we get to spend so much time with that family and see them continue to grow spiritually. They may not be preparing for baptism or anything like that, but they really are growing closer to their father in heaven and really feeling the spirit as they make choices to go to the temple and come to church. It was way fun to see all of their reactions as they went into the celestial room. I am telling you it is by far the best celestial room i have been in. It literally took my breath away the first time i walked in there. It is so amazing in there, so peaceful and just beautiful. I am thankful that so many people get to have that same feeling as they go through the temple!

 

 

On sunday this week we finally got to see someone we are teaching, michelle. She shared her testimony about a month ago in church and we have seen her off and on, but haven't been able to sit down with her for some time. We finally got that chance on sunday. It was so nice to spend time with her. She opened up SO MUCH about her past, and really let us see her emotions and her struggles. She was pregant with twins and lost them at 6 months due to some tragic things that happened to her. She has a very nice suit case type thing that she keeps their things in, pictures from when they were born and so forth. She brought that out and shared with us the things that happened when she lost the twins and showed us their pictures and their outfits and other things that had been given to her. It was such a emotional experience for her to go through those things. But it was so nice to talk with her and help her to see the eternal persepective of things. The only down part of her being so open to this very huge wound in her heart is that it led her to some extreme emotional distress. At the end of us being there she was kinda going in and out of being aware of where she was. We could tell it had been a lot for her to handle emotionally to talk about those things, and that she needed to get some rest and relax. So we left her to be with her sister, and talk with her sister and go to sleep. It was such a great experience with her, but very tough for her to handle mentally/emotionally to talk about it. But she made some really big steps by talking about it, that will help her continue to heal!

 

 

Yesterday at the temple was also a neat experience. I spent like 1 hour each with 2 different tables. The first table i was just stopping by to ask them how it went and they had a TON of questions. It was a table of 5 people. So everytime i answered someones question, another person had a question. They were all really good questions and they were all so friendly and sweet and loved the temple, but MAN was it intense. I mean i was getting all hot and sweaty because there was never a lull in the conversation, as soon as i answered one question another person had a question. It was way fun though because i knew all the answers. I always love surprising myself with my knowledge of the gospel, its quite fun! They were all so nice and funny to talk with. And then i spend another hour with a different table of all ladies who had just as many questions. They came to the temple last week, and then a member in the town they live in came to their church or something and gave a presentation on the temple, so they decided they wanted to come back and learn more and understand the things he was talking about. So they came back and they all said they have learned so much and they really like our temples. So forth. It was a really cool experience to talk with those two groups for so long and just have questions thrown non-stop at ya. I am really looking forward to tomorrow at the temple. A lady that comes to the sperry's house to help take care of their son in the wheel chair is going to come through the temple and we will go with her! we are way excited, because she has always watched nate for the sperry's when they would go to nauvoo to go to the temple and so forth, and so now she gets to go inside and see what it is all about. Keep her in your prayers we hope she really feels the spirit when she goes through it!

 

 

Man i feel better this week with giving you all a REAL EMAIL update on how things are gonig. I am doing good and things really are going good. We are not spending as much time in our area's as we wish we were but thats okay. The temple will be such a great thing for us to work off of after it is done. oh and sister larson got a fun package from her family...i'll attach a picture, the package had some good photo prop stuff to use!

 

 

Well i hope you all have a great week! Maybe some of you will send me mail, i haven't gotten any in like a week and a half.....that kinda stinks. But i also know its mainly because of my grandma's funeral and all that craziness. But feel free to write me, i miss getting letters!

 

 

Sister Barnum