1/10/22 hey how, hey now! this is what dreams are made of!

Hello! Bless all you faithful readers!

Let's start with our exchange! We exchanged with the Sisters in Spearfish, SD on Tuesday. Sister Rampton (Sister Rampage, Sister Ramiumpton, all of her many names) came to Rapid City with me. Things have been moving pretty slowly in our area but Sister Rampton is such a stellar missionary, miracles just follow her so I was so excited to get her in the area! Sister Rampton and I served around each other for about 3 transfers when we were both in Bismarck so it was fun to get to serve with her again!

We only had one lesson during the whole exchange but let me tell ya... this was an AMAZING lesson! We were meeting our friend Natacha at Tropical Smoothie and she wanted to talk about temples and "the diet". So we prepared for all the questions we could and went in. Natacha has been learning about our faith for quite a long time, but is now starting to want to change her life! *que angels singing* Natacha actually signed herself up to attend the Bismarck Temple bus on the the 15th with the Stake. Let me say that again, Natacha SIGNED HERSELF UP to attend the temple! It's a 6 hr drive one way and they are leaving at 3AM! We've talked about the temple with her before, and in our lesson we got confirmation that she realized that she cannot go inside, but as she says "I just want to go feel the holiness of the temple grounds" and she wants to pray about baptism while she is at the temple too! She is so excited! We are so proud of her! I've always been a scaredy cat when talking about Word of Wisdom. I did my personal study all about the WoW and I finally felt like I could teach it effectively. We laid it all out for Natacha and she just sat there. She wasn't upset, but we later found that she was trying to make a game plan in her head. She says, "I don't really want to follow this, but if God asks me to, I can." Doesn't she just make your heart swell up in joy? I am so proud of her and the amazing progress she is making!

Bismack Trip:

My companion, Sister Wessman, is the analytics chair for the mission. So she does all the tracking of our Facebook pages and numbers stuff. It's a big responsibility. But she's awesome at it! This assignment got us an invitation up to Bismarck for a Social Media Committee meeting. We were planning on leaving right after we exchanged back with Spearfish, but the night before President Camp sent out a text saying that we are not allowed to make any big trips because most of the roads in the mission are completely black ice! So we weren't planning on going anymore. But. That morning around 10am they gave us permission to come up to Bismarck after we prayed about our safety. We prayed and we both felt fine and now the meeting was back on again. ROAD TRIP! Bismarck is about 6ish hours away when we dodge reservations and dirt roads. So we packed up real quick and started our journey at 12pm, filling up with gas 3 times, we arrived in Bismarck around 7pm CRT that day. We got to stay in President and Sister Camp's home with Sister Dean and Sister Powell (my daughter!) It was so fun to see these fun sisters again! I really miss them. Those Sisters came from Fargo so only a 3 hour drive, but when they pulled up Sister Camp made us Smookies! They're like chocolate chip cookie ramekins with ice cream and even at 9pm it was divine! We woke up in the morning and had breakfast with the other Social Media Committee members and we had our meeting. Social media is such a good tool to use for missionary work but it really takes a lot of planning and fine tuning. My mission is run like a business, always using numbers and looking for the best next thing. You can be promoted (be given an assignment) or just work your normal area. The meeting was great and we got a lot done! But the meeting lasted 7 hours and we were not on the road back to Rapid City till 4pm. This means that we didn't pull up to the Rapid Apartment until 9ish pm MDT/10ish pm CRT. God was with us as we drove both ways. The roads were completely clear and dry with no black ice until we reached Bismarck and we had no crazy wind spells. The only downside to this story is that we used up 600+ of our allotted miles for the month in 2 days :/ oopsie

Guess how cold it was up in Bismarck... -22 F but -41 windchill... someone tell me why anyone would ever willingly live here in the winter! You walk outside and you feel your face get all scrunched up like a raisin and your nose hairs freeze, which makes you tear up, which makes your tears freeze on your face, all while walking from the car to the home.. It was so cold outside that we threw boiling water in the air and it immediately turned to snow! *pics below*

As soon as we arrived to President and Sister Camp's home we walk in and President looks at us and said, " Did you hear your whole zone got exposed to covid?". Sister Wessman and I look at each other and say "welp.. we're here now.. are we now quarantined?" I guess Bismarck is still getting over another Covid spell so being in Bismarck was even worse than being back in Rapid City. We both felt fine and President wasn't worried about it, thank heavens for masks though!

As soon as we got back to Rapid we went to get tested just to be safe, but we're fine!

To explain the subject line.. We had a lesson with a woman in one of our wards over zoom. She told me I look like Lizzie McGuire (Hillary Duff). Better than being a pirate like I was told last week!

With Sister Wessman and I quarainting for the rest of the week, we had no other option but to find people to teach on Facebook all day long. Usually we spend 30 minutes on it or so, but since we couldn't leave the apartment there was no other way. Sister Wessman and I were SO READY to find and message people. But even after our best effort, we found no one to teach from Facebook! You'd think that when you spend all day on an app you'd have some success. The other sets in our zone who were quarainting found people. Just not us. Last night I was a bit grumpy because I felt like our effort was a bit wasted. But then it hit me that because we spent all week on Facebook, our efforts will be consecrated and that it has shown God that we are willing. He knows his children. Maybe the people we messaged just needed that first message sent to them, and at a later time, will want to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't know what God has planned for them but as his servant I showed him I was willing and sometimes that is all we can do.

26 And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a ^achange of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the ^bsong of redeeming love, I would ask, ^ccan ye feel so now?

Alma knows what's up. The change of heart is repentance! I have never been more grateful to be able to repent than I have been as a missionary. It is one of God's gifts to us. Keep trying! Repentance is not the backup plan! It is the plan!

Sister Barlow/ Sister Lizzie McGuire

1301 Village Dr Apt #206

Rapid City, SD 57701

*forgive me on all my typo's.. God works through imperfect people who has no sense of grammar*

Pictures!

Smoothies with Natacha!

*blurry pic* of Pump Jack

Road Trip!

Proof of how fridiged it is

Sturgis Harley Davidson

This is our friend Tracy who only posts about her dog Trixie and this one made me laugh!

Nightly walks to get out of the apartment...