Monday 25 May 2015

Move to Avon!

Hey Everyone!!!

This week has been super amazing and crazy!

This email is going to be shorter than usual because today has been crazy, so I don't have a lot of time, but I do love you all!

So I said goodbye to Greenfield, and hello to Avon, CT this week! It was super sad to say goodbye to everyone in Greenfield. That place is my home, but I know that I'm here in Avon for a reason, and I'm excited to be here!

So, my new companion,Sister Hansen is AWESOME!!! She's from Provo, Utah of course! My 3rd companion from Utah! WOOO!! She's seriously the greatest though.

My Zone is also awesome. The Hartford Zone is everything I dreamed and more. We have the ghetto of ghettos here, right in the centre of Hartford, and we also have the richest of the rich here in Avon. Best of both worlds!

So we had a baptism on Saturday! Surprise! It was so awesome! The woman who got baptised, her name is Gloria and she is so awesome! She did it all this weekend. She got baptised, conformed, AND went to the Temple today to do baptisms...hence why I'm emailing later today :)

Sister Hansen, Gloria and I at her baptism.

Today at the temple with Sister Harris!

So we have a crazy couple of days coming up in the mission....especially Saturday! So this Saturday, Elder Holland is coming to the mission to have a special Mission Leadership Council with all of the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders. I have to say the opening prayer, and I'm just about dying. I'm so terrified. It'll be great though. I'm sure of it. We're having a "Questions and Answers" session with him so it'll really be amazing. I'm super excited and super terrified at the same time. JEFFREY R. HOLLAND!

Okay well, I love you all so much! I hope you have the most amazing week EVER!

Love,
Sister Rebekah Barrett

Monday 18 May 2015

Whaaaaaaattt???

"Hey everyone!

So I don't even know where to begin because SOOOOO much has happened this week!! All good things :D

Okay well, I guess I'll start from the beginning...

So on Wednesday we met with Keith at the Caputo's home and we planned his whole baptismal service, like who's saying the prayers, who's giving talks, who's baptising him etc. It went really well. He seems like he's totally ready and very excited. Now all he has to do is have a baptismal interview and then he's all set to go!! We're so excited for him!!

Okay so I'm just going to skip to Friday because this was the long awaited day. It was the day that T-texts came. T-text day is SO intense! Everyone is just so excited to find out if they're staying or getting transferred, and it's just crazy! So anyways, we went to District meeting as usual, but then we all got a text saying that T-texts weren't coming till later in the evening, so that made it even more intense. We had to wait even more time to find out what was happening!
So on our way back from District Meeting, we were just in the car, and then we get a call...from President Packard!!! I answered the phone, and then he said "Sisters! I'm calling to tell you that you have BOTH been called as Sister Training Leaders!"  I'm pretty sure Sister Saito's heart stopped! She just looked at me and shouted "WHAT?!?!" It was a crazy phone call! But we were so excited! I asked President i we'd be staying together as STL's, but he told us "You'll just have to wait till T-texts to find that out!" So that made the wait for T-texts even more intense!!
It wasn't until 6pm that T-texts came. We had to wait till the VERY LAST TEXT to find out what was happening to us! So first of all, we saw this: "Sister Halcom- Greenfield", so then I knew I was gone, and then we saw: "Sister Barrett- Avon". 

I'm going to Avon, Connecticut! Back to where it all began! CT BABY! 

It's in the Hartford, Connecticut Stake! So because nobody knows where Avon is, I'll give a little background. It's right outside of Hartford City, The Hartford Temple is in my Ward boundaries, the ward boundaries are tiny compared to my 2 other areas. This is really going to be a big change, but I'm excited.

On the other hand, I'm sad to be leaving Greenfield of course. This place is home. I've been here for 6 months and I've really gotten to know the people and the area, and I've become part of this branch. The people here are family to me, and I'll never forget any of them. I'll be keeping in touch with them for sure! And hopefully I'll be back for Keith's baptism! :D

So my last week in Greenfield has been really amazing! We had an incredible lesson with Porter. We taught him about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we had Kelly, one of our members with us, and it was just AWESOME! We had our lesson all planned out, and it was going better than we could ever hope for, but then as we talked about baptism, something inside of me just told me "you need to invite him to be baptised', and I fought against it for a few minutes because I told myself that he wasn't ready, but then I couldn't hold it in any longer, and I just had to. His answer to the invitation was not what I was expecting. He said "Yes I do think that's something I need to do, but not right now." It wasn't "No". So we told him that that's okay. He'll know when it's the right time, because the Lord will tell him. I told him that the Sisters will let me know when he's getting baptised, so I can come back, and he said he'd love that! It was really great :)

So, my time in Greenfield has come to an end, and it's been so incredible, I've learned so much from my companions here, and the members and investigators here. I've developed lifelong friendships, and I've come to love the people and the place. It's a very special place to me. When other people hear of Greenfield, Massachusetts, they probably say "Uhhhh where even is that??", but to me, it's home, it's where my family is :) I had the opportunity to bear my testimony one last time in Greenfield yesterday, and it was really emotional. But I was glad that I got to stand up there and let everyone know how much they mean to me, and bear my testimony of the restored gospel. 

My mission means everything to me, and I'm excited for this next chapter. I'm excited to see what Avon, Connecticut brings into my life! :)

I got some new glasses this week! Hope you all like them!


I love you all so much! I hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,
Sister Rebekah Barrett"

Anyone who wants to write to Sister Barrett in her new area, you can contact myself or her mom on Facebook for her address! Thank you for all your love and support!

Wednesday 13 May 2015

#mayofmiracles

Hey everyone!!

This week was seriously INCREDIBLE!!

So first of all, I didn't email yesterday because we had interviews with President Packard pretty much all day, so today is our p-day instead :) Yesterday was so awesome! It was our last interviews with President Packard before he goes home, so it was sad, but still so so good. We all thought we were going to get some information about the upcoming transfer before T-texts come on Friday...but we got absolutely no information, so we'll all just have to wait till Friday! I'm so nervous! I've been here for a long time. It might be time to go :( We'll see!

The Springfield Zone (aka the New Jerusalem). So much Zion!

So this past week....okay so last Monday evening we went on exchanges. I stayed in Greenfield, and Sister Saito went to North Brookfield. It was an awesome day! We went to see our investigator Porter. We talked with him about the Book of Mormon, and it was really incredible. I got very excited to talk about how much my knowledge of the Book of Mormon has grown, and how much my testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown, and I really can't remember anything I said to him. But I just LOVE The Book of Mormon! It turned out to be a really amazing lesson, and he's progressing a lot! We just NEED to get him to church! :)

Then later on in the week we went to see Jose and we introduced a "15 step stop smoking program" to him. It was written by missionaries in the Ireland Dublin Mission in the 1980's. So if any of you remember an Elder David M. Bresnahan, he wrote this program. It's a 15 step program that takes 7 days. Yes, it helps people to quit smoking in 1 WEEK! When we told Jose about it, and introduced it to him, he was SO excited!!!! We're going to start it with him this week!

Then on Friday, we had an awesome Zone meeting with our awesome Zone!! After our Zone meeting, we got a call from Keith. He was in the hospital. He's been pretty sick lately, but he's doing a lot better now :) So on the phone he said to us "I just need to be baptised". And we weren't sure how serious he was because he has been investigating the church for like 7 or 8 years, and he always says he wants to be baptised but he never will. So we didn't take it too seriously. Then later on, ALL of our appointments cancelled, which was the worst, so we just started going to see a bunch of inactive members that we didn't know. We realised after a short time that it wasn't really effective, so we decided to just sit in the car and pray. We asked heavenly father what we should do with the time that we had, and what would be the most effective thing to do with our time, and we asked him to direct us to where we need to go. After we prayed, I felt like we needed to go to Athol, which is a town that's about a half hour away from Greenfield itself.  We decided to visit a potential investigator there, but when we got there, she said that she was super sick, and asked us to come back another day. 
So, I just said "Okay let's just go to the Caputo's." They just came back from Washington, so we hadn't seen them in a while anyway. we went over there, and they were all excited to see us and to get a surprise visit. We talked to Brother Caputo for a few minutes, and he brought up Keith. He asked us if Keith had mentioned to us that he wanted to be baptised. We told him that he said he wanted to be baptised, but we didn't know how serious he actually was about it. But Brother Caputo told us that he really was serious about it, and he really does want to be baptised! Then he said that he was just about to leave to pick him up from the hospital. So we said to him "Okay Brother Caputo, we have a challenge for you! We want you to show us how great you are at missionary work. If Keith really does want to be baptised, then when you see him tonight, set a baptismal date with him". So he took on the challenge, and left.

So, then when we were on out way home, we got a call from Brother Caputo. He said "Sisters, I have Keith here with me, and we've been talking, and he wants to be baptised on May 31st!" AAAHHHHHHHH! 

So Keith is getting baptised!!!!!!!! This is seriously the BIGGEST miracle EVER! Just ask any missionary that has served here in the past 7 years! Everyone in the branch is so excited, everyone in the mission is so excited, Keith is so excited! It's so awesome!!!

This is seriously a May of Miracles in the MBM! :D

This week, we also got to visit Keith and do some yard work for him. We also got to sit on his motorcycle and take fun pictures :p



I hope you all have an incredible week!
I love you all so much :)

Love,
Sister Rebekah Barrett

Monday 4 May 2015

Spring is here!

Hey Everyone!!

This week was pretty awesome!

First of all...the weather has been AMAZING! It was 80 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday!!! Which is about 27 degrees Celsius! So it was NICE!!! Spring is finally here!!


SPRING!

This week we had the opportunity to go to the Temple! We had "Return and Report", which is basically just a meeting with President and Sister Packard and the AP's where the new missionaries and trainers come together after 3 weeks of training to see how things are going, and afterwards we get to go to the Temple! It was amazing!!! It was such a great day! :D

On Thursday, we had a lesson with our investigator, Amanda. She has been coming to church every week, and she is just AWESOME! So we invited her to be baptised this week! She's praying about it, but we REALLY feel like this is going to happen! She is SO ready! She bore her testimony in church this week, and made people cry because it was so beautiful! She is ready to be baptised! Pray that she'll recognise that for herself. She is SO close!!

On Friday, we went to Vermont again to go to an appointment, and we had some spare time before the appointment, so we decided to go to an inactive member's home. They lived nearby so we thought "Why not?". Well, when we were driving there, we ended up going down this long bumpy road, beside this massive, beautiful lake. The house was RIGHT by the lake. It was BEAUTIFUL! So we knocked on the door and waited...and waited...aaaand nobody answered. There was nobody home. So we were walking back to our car, and this guy in a jeep pulls into the driveway, and gets out of his car, so obviously we're like "Hey! Do you live here?" He said no...
But then he told us that he's a member of the church, and he's from Connecticut, and he just has a lake house in Vermont, and he was just driving by, and saw us and decided to say hi. It was the most random thing EVER! But it was cool!

WOO! Cars are fun!!


Then on Saturday we had dinner with Lee and Anthony. Two of our recent converts, and they brought us out to have a picnic by a lake, and make s'mores! It was MAGICAL!

The lake where we had our picnic! BEAUTIFUL!

It was such a great week, and I'm excited for the week ahead! I know it's going to be awesome!

I love you all! I hope you have an amazing week!

Love,
Sister Rebekah Barrett