2/7/22 one library at a time

hello! I hope you all had a great weekend! Here's the scoop on Grand Forks ND...

We had some awesome lessons this last week!

Sister Gibbs, my companion,messaged this lady "Hey! would you like to come to church with me this Sunday?" and the lady responded yes! (which never happens haha) So she came last week and after she said that she wants to meet with us. So on Wednesday Sister Gibbs and I were prepping for either a big bashing session or the most spirit filled discussion. We could see it go both ways. She wanted to meet at one of the malls here, not a big deal, but this particular mall was hooked up to Hope Church so when we got there we were getting the worst looks from people. We were thinking we were going to be bashed by everyone in the mall. But eventually She came and we learned that about a year ago she had a dream of two girls on a street and the next day she saw them (sister missionaries) and she went up to them and they started teaching her. But Covid hit and they couldn't meet and they lost track of her. UNITIL Sister Gibbs messaged her and she wanted to keep learning. She had already been taught just about everything so we did a slight refresher on the Restoration and then Temples got brought up. We get to meet today and she's bringing a friend!

We had Zone Conference on Thursday and we got to drive to Fargo! Shane Littlefirld (North America Central Rep) came and did our whole conference. It felt like a big business meeting because he showed a bunch of graphs and charts, and all i'm saying is that my brain does now work that way haha. He lost me at the beginning, but the charts were super pretty! But he gave a lot of really great pointers for us and our finding efforts. We have been known in the NDBM to be super creative in our finding ways, but there is also success in the normal ways (members/LA and stuff). It was just what our zones needed and we are excited to see where this inspiration leads to!

I stayed the night in Fargo because we had MLC (MissionLeadershipCouncil) the next day. I got to stay with Sister Powell (my trainee!) and Sister Ah Mu! After we cleaned up from the Zone Conference we went to a mall in Fargo to have a lesson. She never showed but we went around and talked to a few people! A few people actually said hello first! We were able to teach them all at least one gospel principle, and 2 of the 3 wanted a church tour! We were having all this great success but then the scary librarian comes to us and puts her rule board in our face and says to leave the people alone. Mind I say that the dude we were talking to was all like "what the heck lady? we are having a conversation" and it was funny. She threatened to kick us out of the library. #dangerous

The next morning we had MLC and it was all based around the previous zone conference and we just made a game plan. I kid you not, I work with some of the most inspired missionaries ever. Life is so good.

On Sunday after a lesson we were driving to attend a sacrament meeting and Sister Gibbs told me she had the thought that there's someone in Walmart we need to talk to. I would never want to say no to any prompting, but in Walmart on a Sunday? I brought up the tiny concern with her and the spirit hit us both with "DID I STUTTER" and we pulled into the Walmart parking lot feeling like we were confusing everyone about these mormons on a Sunday.. We were scaling all the food isles (rip fast sunday grumbles) but no one wanted to talk. So I proposed for us to move to the other side of the store. One of the things we talked about in ZC was how we need to find the elect, and the maybe (s) we can teach when they are more prepared. We were constantly stepping aside in the isles to pray for the eyes to see who he needs us to. And lo and behold we are walking by the toy aisle and a Walmart worker crosses our paths and we hand him a sticker with our number and facebook profile on it. The interaction lasted mayabe 4 seconds. But as soon as we did it we got the feeling that we completed what God had sent us to do. We are hoping to run into Dean today so pray for us!

We had some fun moments this week

- after a successful day we had a few minutes left of our dinner hour and we celebrated with dairy queen blizzards. If my family has taught me anything, it's never too cold for ice cream

- I got MyPlan in the middle of Zone Conference. Some tears may have been shed. My mission has gone so fast!

- I've learned that the perks of this wild winter is that you can freeze objects in seconds. I've tried bubbles and orbeez. If you have any other ideas please send them my way.

I love you all! Stay warm out there!

Sister Barlow

3750 Garden View Dr

#211

Grand Forks, ND 58201

pictures

- this picture was taken in a cul-de-sac and they have so much snow they just pile it in the middle of the street and it makes a little round-a-bout

- cute prairie pianos in the creepy mall

- memes and more memes

- my frozen bubbles that I dropped hehe

- Fargo + Grand Forks Leadership with the Camps!

- you can't beat a ND sky!