3/28/22 I would like to report... a crime

Hello! Thanks for tuning in! Our week was slow up until the last two days and we were really hit with some awesome miracles!

Our Friends!

Steve- We finally were able to get ahold of Steve! We send him daily scriptures as a good way to start his day and then try to call him later that night, and this week he finally answered! Please pray for Steve and his mom! She is going through a lot of health challenges right now. One thing I love about Steve is that he has an eternal perspective. We haven't been able to teach him the plan of salvation yet, but he already has faith that there's more to life than what is here on earth! We called him one night and we were able to read with him and he asked if he and his mom could get a blessing. He tries to attend zoom church as much as his job allows. He is just so cool. He is doing his best to endure to the end!

Let me say, I really haven't had to tract that much on my mission. I know back in the days that's all you would do. But when I was a new missionary they said to not tract and focus on social media. So now having covid restrictions lifted we are able to go knock doors as one of our finding activities. My poor trainee hahahha! We pull up to a complex and she looks at me and asks "So how do I do this?" and her confident trainer says "beats me hehe but we'll figure it out". Pray for my comp. We are learning how to do so many new things hahah! But big blessings have come from it so far! I think Heavenly Father knows that I hate tracting apartments with everything in me, so he blesses us. God is so good!

Yolanda- at this point we haven't found a new person to teach so we decided to act in faith and knock one of the close apartment buildings. We started on the first floor and the first few doors were all not interested, but the last door (3rd floor last door vibes) we knocked and this woman answered and we asked if she knew anyone who was looking for a church. And this woman reaches behind the door and grabs her friends and pushes her out to us and closes the door behind her. This friend holds out her hand with a big grin "Hi! I'm Yolanda!" and we ask her all the questions. She just moved here a few years ago and is looking for a church but she prayed to God asking where to go and we knocked on the door! What I think is so cool is that she didn't even live at the complex we were knocking! She walked us down the street to her home and then she invited us back over to start doing Book of Mormon studies! Her ex boyfriend used to study the Book of Mormon so she knew a little about it but wanted the "real studies" from us!

Brad - After we arrived home from Yolanda's, I checked my phone and I missed a text from our friend Brad. We were trying to find our friend we were teaching and her address led to his, and he graciously accepted the invite to learn more. We send him scriptures every morning but this time he texts us asking if he can call us. We call him back and he starts laying down the questions.."so what is this mormon bible?","what does your church believe in", "where do you meet to worship". Lots and lots of questions. But it gave the opportunity to testify and he then asked if he could come check it out on Sunday! It was really exciting! My favorite part though is he asked if we follow the 10 commandments and we said we do, then Brad says..."I've done my best to follow them all but I haven't been true to every single one of them... the one about killing..." at this point Sister Haufe and I are looking at eachother thinking we are talking to a murder on the phone. He continues.." I killed a bird once when I was ten and I've felt horrible about it ever since, can I be forgiven?". We love Brad!

Dawn- she finally came to church with us! She was early and we were able to give her a tour and introduce her to people! It was fast and testimony meeting and everyone who spoke was guided by the spirit! It was perfect for Dawn's first time! She loved Relief Society and made a lot of friends there. We stayed after to have a quick lesson with her, but that quick lesson quickly turned into a 1h 45m lesson. Since she has voiced how she wants to be baptized, her husband and her daughter have become very anti. She loves what she is learning and has so many questions. Our lesson was mostly answering her questions in the scriptures and drawing out the Plan of Salvation. The spirit was so strong and she just soaked it all up! She told us that she has a goal to be baptized before I leave, and after yesterday when we covered so much it might actually possible for her to be ready in time! PLEASE PRAY FOR DAWN! It was such a good lesson that when we went home Sister Haufe and I couldn't sit down cuz we were still full of adrenaline! Her sister who attended the baptism in Fargo with her is also wanting to be baptized so we are working with both of them because they are each other's biggest support in this!

We had MLC this week ;( I was not prepared when they called on me to give my final testimony to the leadership. I wish I was not a cryer but here we are. It was good and I'm so grateful for my time here in the NDBM being able to learn so much! I still have a few more weeks so I'm soaking it up as much as possible! GO ON A MISSION! YOU WILL NEVER REGRET GOING!

Funny moments of this week

- While on a phone call with Lois we asked how she was doing and said "waiting around like a pile of bones just waiting for it to happen" Us:"waiting for what to happen?" Lois: "to feed the worms!"

- while talking to a member on Sunday she asked me where I was from and after I said Utah she looked super surprised and told me she thought I was from Norway!She then told me I sounded like a Norwegian speaking english... please pray for me too. God knew that it would be a challenge enough for me to be called english speaking haha

CRIME! So here is the explanation of the subject line. Sunday morning Sister Haufe and I had a church tour we needed to get to so we went to our garage and it was wide open. We call the sisters we live with and they said they are positive they shut it. But we looked closer and Sister Reid and Sister Miners car license plates were stolen! They are just gone! So the sisters came down and we called one of the senior missionaries and he told us to call 911. We call them and they told us to call a differenct number so we are playing phone tag and we finally get to the number we needed and it was an automated message that asked what is the emergency and the sisters shove the phone into my hand and my dumb butt says "I would like to report a crime" *in the norwegian english I guess I now speak* It was horrible and I realized how dumb I sounded but it was too late, I had alreay said it... RIP me... But the police came and took some pictures and noticed that our garage was off its hinges and reported that they broke our garage too! It was quite an experience.

I forgot where I was reading this but here's a quote from my studies I just loved

"and even if this were not the case, where is your faith? Where is your confidence in God? Do you know that all the things are in his hands? He made all things and still rules over them, and how easy a thing it would be with God if every Saint here would just lift their desires to him in prayer that the way might be opened before us. How easy would it be for God to cause the ice to break away, and in a moment's time we could be off on our journey; but how can you expect the Lord to prosper you when you are continually murmuring against him" - somewhere in gospel library

I loved reading this. It is just a good reminder that if we put our trust in God it will always work together for our good with our consent. It's going to work out his way no matter what, but when we let him we give him permission to work his wonders.

I love you all! Go have a great week!

xx- sister barlow

pics!

Sister Reid and my super cool apron I stole from one of the senior missionaries

a good meme- I have never gone 90 in a mission car, but its still true

Sister Reid <3

Smoothie Bowls!

MLC <3

My frog bubbles

Caramel popcorn for conference anyone?

the district

breaking in the garage