Wednesday, December 20, 2006


Merry Christmas!

Charlie Brown Christmas

Our Swimming Skit
Southern half of West Virgina Charleston Mission at Christmas Zone Conference
My Birthday goodies from the Zone Leaders

Preston, our invesigator that moved to Colorado

Merry Christmas

Hey all,
I wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas. I won't be able to check this until after Christmas so I hope you have a great one. Thank you so much for the brithday cards and present,they were great. you make me feel so loved. I guess that i will be having a member call on the 25th to see if that is the day you will all be there.
What a great week. Have I ever told you guys that I love being on a mission? Oh I thought of two more things I would absolutely love
Calendar of Christ
CD- Nashville tribute to Joseph Smith.
We went to the mall for p-day. It felt really weird being in there. If you know me and shopping, if I get rushed or I don’t get enough time try it out I end up returning it right away. Well you can all guess what happened I returned it. We rushed over to give a member a haircut after we were done shopping. Well I had one of the most memorable birthdays thinking of others and not myself. We had the tastiest breakfast at a member’s home with a less active and our Zone Leader (Elder Tautatoli and Elder Marshall). The less-active told of her conversion story and how much the missionaries meant to her in her life. I love hearing how this gospel blesses them and everyone who allow Christ and his Atonement to become the most important aspect in their lives. The zone leader’s gave me all the goodies that were in their apartment cause they are on a no sugar diet. They also put a bow on our car and said they got us a new car. Ha ha it was funny. That night we went to a relief society Christmas dinner. A couple of less actives showed up and felt welcomed. It was good to hear some of their favorites scriptures and why. I made me think of the whole book and how I can’t pick a favorite one cause they are all so good. My scriptures are becoming very colorful! After that we raced over to Josh Mompower’s (new investigator that read 10 chapters, also friends with Jason Dobbin) apartment. He had there a cobbler that he bought for us to celebrate. This Josh guy is a funny character. He’s very gun ho about the army and is training to go back, but very kind and polite using words like yes mam. There was only one problem; there were no candles to put in the cobbler. But him being creative put some hand sanitizer on the top of his fingers. The liquid was very liquidy and ran down and burnt his fingers. Josh didn’t give up and tried it with a glove. This birthday I blew out three lit fingers instead 22 candles. Very West Virginian! P.S. I know I’m in Virginia but if anyone does anything stupid here they say “ Very West Virginian!”
We were able to meet with the Bishop’s son Mike Skidmore. We are working praying, reading and quitting smoking. He is down to 3 cigs a day. P.S. everyone here smokes! No joke! Its hear for him cause he lives and works with smokers.
We finally got to track part of Tenth Street, a street that looked very desirable to missionaries. They first four doors we were rejected pretty hard core with flying hands and voices raising. The only man that was Christ like and actually nice to us was a ‘born again Atheist’ and didn’t even believe in Christ. He wished us good luck in our journey and we went on our way to find more people.
Rob Zisette( ward member) played in a Christmas program from another church. It was fun to see and listen to the choir gospel music. They were shouting and clapping for Jesus. We got some people there that we will be visiting later
Christmas Zone conference was awesome. President Cowley gave us all West Virginia Charleston Mission pins. We all came up with skit in our zone and performed them for the southern half of the mission. Some of the skits were a bit odd. Most of us didn’t know what was going on, but knowing how much time we were given we could understand why. Well in our zone they gave all the responsibility to us sisters. So Sister Quinton and I had to think of a skit for our zone of 12 missionaries and a senior couple. We did a little synchronize swimming act to Carol of the bells. It was hilarious! All of us had swimming gear over our proselyting clothes and jumped into the pool (blue sheets) and swam together. Then realizing that we are not suppose to be in the water, ripped off the swimming gear and starting ringing doorbells. It was a good one we heard chuckling from President and Sister Cowley.We then got all the letter and gift that you all had sent awhile ago for the christmas message. Thank you sooooooo much, they were great. i loved reading about everthing.
Mom- that was the most thoughtful, cutest card ever
Dad- that was so caring to remember all thoses things
Austin- thanks for being an example to me
Celeste- thanks for the letter and long round package underneath my Christmas tree
Danica- i loved the letter and the family Picture! and i'm not Stubborn!
Bryce- thanks for saying happy brithday to me
Grandpa and Grandma- thanks so much for the brithday card, Christams letter and the gifts, i love them !!!
Love you all
Sister Barrand

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Hey All

CONGRATULATIONS! Austin I’m so excited. Did you know I guess Canada? You can even ask my companion. Now we have severed as a family in a big circle!
Ok well Kevin is out of the picture for now. He told his roommate Mike that he didn’t want to meet with us anymore. Sad we think he’s just not ready yet, he got to scared cause he felt the spirit so strong. His girlfriend is the most important person in his life now. We taught Laura Hull again and she is all excited to learn more and we have to wait till January 8th when she comes back from break to teach her the last lesson. She will pray about a baptism date over the break. She is progressing and loving this gospel, it amazing how it can bless your life. She got really sick though and is going home to receive a blessing from her boyfriends dad. We know and she know that Satan is not happy that she is progressing and will do anything to stop her. But she is way to strong and won’t give up. We got a new investigator Shavon and taught her lesson one, but haven’t been able to get a hold of her recently. It so sad that it is so hard to meet with these people sometimes. The lesson went excellent. I felt it was probably the best lesson we have ever taught. The Christmas dinner was pretty good except the two young women singing Santa baby suggestively, when we had two investigators there. Ronnie Dalton ( which we have to give to the Elders cause he lives in there area now, sad ( our only adult investigator)! Josh Mompower who is best friends with a less Active Jason Dobbins who enjoyed the dinner and who we taught. He had read 10 chapters the first night we gave him the book of Mormon. The next time we saw him he wanted us to quiz him on the chapters. Oh I we had the worst food the other day it was….. a ten year old piece of reeses pieces. It was the grossed thing ever. Both sis Q and I were so grossed out.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

I'm so excited for the new Applebee's!
Santa Clause is comin' to town
The Lawsons

Wow

Wow, wow so much going on! I loved reading everyone discussing how your going to run Christmas presents this year. Ha ha. I think I was laughing so loud that I night of disturbed the people in the library. I would have to go with Marcia’s ADDENDUM A. Good thing I found out what that meant for my companion cause I thought you were using the first initials in our names. But now I understand… anyways that idea is the way to go, I just thought you would also like my opinion even though I can really be a part of the whole present giving thing this Christmas. L I’m really sad about not being able to be there and give away presents. I’m wondering when you all are going to be around so I know when I should call. Sounds like the 28th or 29th? But I don’t know if I can call then. Oh and I think I need a calling card for that. I’ll ask the President on that one.
It’s OFFICAL I have been REJECTED with the whole door slammed in my face after baring my testimony! So dad, I’m not the heartbreaker anymore! It hurts!
They tell us that Less Actives are like investigators. So we re-taught some of the lessons and it makes more sense for them. When we were trying to find Ashley Shockley in that huge apartment building we taught the bishop’s son Mike (less active). He asked us a good question “ why a mission”. Now I’ve gotten that question before but this time I bore my testimony about it and was so incredible to have that warm feeling of making the right choice and sharing it with others. I knew he could feel it and he knew he had to start making some changes. I hope he can be a good influence to our investigator Kevin Sullivan. YES they are roommate that how Kevin got a hold of the Book of Mormon. They also have another roommate that just got off of his mission 2 months shy because he couldn’t hack it anymore (now moving in with a girl). Yeah so that apartment is full of work!
We had are first lesson with Ronnie (a man that we tracked into). He is just great. He called us before the appointment to make sure that we were still coming. It’s funny cause that is our job. Before the lesson he showed us his amazing house that he built with train tracks smothering it. It was pretty cool he had an elevator in him home. The lesson went well and he came to church for all three hours. That’s amazing for their first time at church. Most investigators don’t enjoy fast and testimony meetings. And this one lasted for an hour and 25 minutes. People just keep coming up and the spirit was so strong there. It was neat that we got a mix of all the different age groups also. You know how some testimony meetings are all little kids. This one was evenly done, like they arranged it or something. Second hour was short but good (it was on repentance) third hour was kind of a mess because it was senior missionaries trying to pump up the members to go out on missions. They were mostly talking about info and not the spiritual side. So I’m sure Ronnie really didn’t know what was going on. But never the less he stay and told us he enjoyed it. We have the ward Christmas party and we hope he will be there. I have horrible news this week we have to give this golden investigator to the Elders, cause he live in their area. LSad! It’s ok the elders ran in to a new investigator that was working in their area but lives in our. So we will get to teach Peter. We jokingly promised each other as missionaries that we would baptize these investigators that we are switching if we gave them to one another. Noel Lawson came again to church and him and his wife feed us a lovely healthy dinner. After we talked about the gospel. I guess he has been in contact with the missionaries and not his wife. I guess the wife had a big dislike for Mormons and that why he didn’t attend church. Now we were all sitting around talking about the gospel. cool!
Thank the Fitzgerald for the card and money, which was nice of them…. did you tell them that it was my birthday coming upJ?
Hey everyone keeps asking me where my ancestors are from and I really don’t know much about it, only that some are from Norway. Just wondering if you could send some info this way. Or my genealogy line or tree or something to help us teach.

What Sister Barrand List for Christmas…..and Birthday;)
Shoes!!! From Journeys- Black Walden size 7 ½ . keep the recite just in case the size doesn’t fit. They should be around $30… It’s for the big spender
Mission stuff… like
The big poster of the huge linage from Adam all the way to Christ. That would be sweet!
Talks on CD (by Prophets?)
I would love to get Jesus the Christ on CD
CD ( any thing that would invite the spirit) mom and Danica did an awesome job on that! That missionary one is my favorite
I would love some new clothes like…
Small button up sweater that I can wear over other shirts (normal solid colors that would match a lot of things.)
Small plain long t-shirt (maybe from Shade’s or Molly me) (white, black, and some other colors)
Plain long Tanks top (Celeste or mom knows how I like them) with no slits in the side (white, black)