Devil Eyebrows!!!

Well, we attempted to read The Book of Mormon all day Thursday. Alas, it did not come to pass. sigh : ( We got a phone call that side tracked us and instead we went over to a member's house to talk about an investigator that we are now teaching. it was a bit of a long day...But we are still trying to read The Book of Mormon before the end of the transfer by listening to it whenever we are in the apartment. So that has been working out.On Saturday we did service for Angela and Robert Dorsey. Part Member family. Every year on the 26 and 27 of May they do a fundraiser four people who need glasses and hearing aids. So Sister Glad and I headed over to the State Capitol and scooped strawberry short cake with ice cream for 4 hours! We got an assembly line going between the two of us.

She got out the cake, I scooped the ice cream, and She poured the strawberry topping on top and gave it to Phyllis for the whip cream topping and then to the customers. We stayed pretty busy the entire four hours! I got quite a bit of ice-cream on myself and she got some strawberry gunk on her...Needless to say that We got my 'fill' of strawberry short cake to last us for a very long time. But it was a lot of fun and was for a good cause. We actually saw several members of the ward and also the office couples (we have two right now)! It was a lot of fun!!! Later that evening we had horse-shoe throwing and guitar playing at the Casdorphs' home. I even managed to get one horse-shoe within a 2 inch radius of the pole! While the Elders serenaded us with a Johnny Cash song! It was all to much fun!!Sunday was missionary talk day....Well, only in regards that three out of eight missionaries in the ward spoke.( Elder Jenkins, Elder Oliverson and I.) My luck. I tried finagling out of this one but it wasn’t as easy as my Farwell talk. Ha ha. We all spoke on experiences in our youth that helped us to become the people we are today. It was neat to see how different all of our individual talks were. Elders Oliverson’s relayed his to basketball and his friends. Elder Jenkins was on the importance of family prayer.

And I talked about a couple of things like:How my family has been a huge influence on me. From day one I remember always reading scriptures at 5:45 before seminary together as a family no matter what. Even if it meant that my mom would take extra time and read after with us little kids the Book of Mormon stories editions. My parents knew how important the Sabbath was. We never missed church. Now that doesn’t’ mean we were always on time but we never missing church for any reason even when we were on vacation. This was important for me to see how essential the Sabbath Day is. We spent time with one another and had Family Home Evening. It was so natural to spend my Sabbaths for the lord and my Family. My parents taught me in a way that I never felt like I was missing out on the out side world. Being with my family was cool. I gained love and trust from spending time with them. Because of my families example all the things we should be doing came second nature. Then I shared about EFY. When I was old enough I had the privilege to go to EFY. This was never a struggle to get me to go because I knew there would be a lot of Mormon boys there. It took me totally off guard when I gain a testimony instead of a boyfriend. To look back and remember this experience brings a smile to me. We were all sitting around studying before we headed of to bed. I felt the spirit so strong as we read from JSH, I could not put the book down nor did I want to do anything but read. I wanted to read the whole book. This was so unlike me I hated to read and I never felt like I could read but this I jumped right into. I knew it was true. The spirit was too strong for me to forget. I could not believe that I had been missing out on reading the scriptures and feeling the spirit. That night I didn’t even talk to my roommate, I was too indulged with the story of Joseph Smith. And how then it finally clicked I gained my very own testimony of Joseph Smith. Then of course after high school I did what any Mormon girl would do and went to a LDS school. At BYUI I was hoping to find me a Mormon boy BUT again taken totally off guard instead of a fiancé I gained a testimony of Missionary work. I t was in my BOM class. My teacher did not teach the spirit taught! He would have me coming out of class gleaming. There was one class period in particular on a Change of heart. I realized I could have a change of heart and the girl next to me could have a change of heart and it wasn’t just for the people in the scriptures but it was for us to learn and grow from. This was so exciting to me I raced home and told all my roommate and that wasn’t enough I had to go tall other people’s roommates. Emily and I talked for hours. I remember feeling the most happiness from sharing what I know to be true with others. It was the most incredible experience. I then knew I could have this same kind of feeling all the time as a missionary and that is what I wanted. And that is what is happening now. I’m sharing with others the most wonderful message of all.

Sister Glad sat in the congregation with Trisha, a new investigator of ours. She is 35 years old and has come to Church three weeks in a row! She wants to bear her testimony this coming Sunday! She's an amazing woman. She is practically deaf (50% in one ear, and 60% in the other) and can read lips REALLY well, and also signs. Luckily we have a return sister missionary who has been willing to sign throughout some of the meetings which has helped Trisha to keep up with what is going on better than she can read lips. There are a few members who speak really fast and then will look away from Trisha, and then she doesn't know what they are saying...It's pretty exciting to help her needs, but we love teaching her and seeing the changes that she wants to make in her life for the Gospel to really take root.We actually were invited to a family party on Memorial Day and we spent it with the Penningtons, which is a big family in these parts. They've been central to the Church's growth here for at least the past 50 years/more. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of laughs. WE ate a lot of shrimp!!!! And let me tell you something, they are crunchy when you leave the shell on. The Grandmother (in her 80’s) was a hoot she found out I was a beautician and asked me if I could make her beautiful because when ever she looked in the mirror she can’t see what she is doing…. So I shaped her up with some nice trimmed eyebrows. It was great. She went and told every “Look at me, now I’m beautiful!”Then we ended our Memorial Day with the Humphrey family. I gave their son, Jeremiah, a hair cut (wild child) and then Brother Humphrey taught us about Our Loving Heavenly Father. We go walking with Sister Humphery. It will be neat when they get sealed to each other.

By the way it is soooo hott here like humid hottttt. I don’t even need to put lotion on my face any more because it is sooooo humid.We had an appointment with Stephanie (21yrs old) and her friend was visiting from her home town. She's Stephanie’s age and also has a little boy, who's almost two. We spent some time with them and then found ourselves over at Maggie Moos where we each had some very yummy ice-cream! And we also bumped into Annie Ostler, a member, who works at Maggie Moos. (She decorates cakes!) She and Stephanie got to meet and talk for quite a bit. It was wonderful! We've been wanting Stephanie to meet members of the ward, and we had mentioned her to Annie before and Annie just started chatting to her. An amazing person is Annie! Now she getting some friends in the ward and it will be great. It’s important that everyone has a friend at church.

Anyhow-afterwards I shared an experience with Sister Glad... during my interview with President, he mentioned that we never know what's going to happen about 3 o'clock this afternoon...And when Stephanie and Annie met this afternoon, it was 3 o'clock. Amazing, huh?! And all because we let Stephanie talk us into going to Maggie Moos....Just really neat. A tender mercy of the Lord, reaffirming to me that He really is in charge of His work, and He allows us to be apart of it! President also said that I need to take more charge. So I have to work on that.Today has been good. We played some around the world, horse, I learned “You are my sunshine” on the guitar and I plucked sister Glad’s eyebrows...She asked me if I could help make her 'devil' eyebrows go away...I replied “Gladly”. So...they might be slightly red, but that’s normal. No more devil eyebrows for her!
Love you all,
Sister Barrand