Praise to the Man

It was a hard working week! The best kind. We had exchanges in
Hatfield with the STL's, Sister Soulier and Matthews. They are so
great and I really love their area Hatfield, it's such a nice place! I
was with Sister Matthews for the day, she's from South Africa and this
is the last transfer of her mission, she seems so old and wise to me
haha. It was really good, I learned a lot!
We saw so many miracles just like we always do. No matter what happens
each day we are blessed with so many tender mercies. God is so good.
All of the time. One of my favourite things is tracting but we don't
do it often because it's usually not as effective here as street
contacting, however so many awesome things happened because of it this
week!! We followed up and went back to some houses that we have
already visited, we had a couple really good conversations with people
and set some return appointments. As we were walking up this one
street, we ran into this really nice man who was asking us questions
about the Atonement. He was so cool and was really respectful and
genuinely wanted to know more about it. The Atonement is the one thing
that I can just answer anyyyy question about, it's my favourite. I was
so thankful that God gave me and Sister Benson an opportunity to
testify to someone who genuinely wanted to know. On St. Patrick's day
in the evening, we went back to a different street that we had talked
to people on before and while we were walking there Sister Benson was
like, "How many doors do you think we'll need to knock on for someone
to let us in?" And I was like, "I dunno. 500 maybe." Then we both
laughed about it. AND THEN we knocked on the first door we had planned
to and had an awesome conversation with the lady that lives there, she
accepted a Book of Mormon and we are going back sometime this week. We
knocked on the 2nd door and the man who answered let us in! The 2nd
door! What was cool was that he was Irish. So we spent our St. Patty's
day talking about religion with an Irish guy.
The Elders had a baptism this Sunday and it was so wonderful!! Another
African Joseph is now a member of the Watford Ward:) The senior couple
serving with us, the Baron's, drove me and Sister Benson so that we
could all visit a recent convert. Then they drove us back to their
place and made us waffles! I am so thankful for senior couples. They
make me feel like I'm hanging out with my grandparents for a short
amount of time and they always just answer our prayers. I love them so
much!
This P-day we went to the Wembley stadium where they had the Olympics
when it was in London, I'll attach a very attractive picture of my
mission squad. These are the people I hang out with most and they're a
bunch of goofs:) Love them tons.
I really learned a lot this week. On Saturday the streets of Watford
are lined with men from all of the different churches handing out
pamphlets and preaching with microphones. It's pretty crazy and
honestly I've never seen anything like it. There are a lot of old
churches all over England and church people stand outside of them (and
on every street corner) and scream at us when they see us walk down
the road. It was really funny because me and Sister Benson walk down
that road every single day and try to talk to people, but it's only on
Saturday that everyone comes out and tries to get people at their
church for the next morning. We were approached by so many men from
these different churches. We stopped this one really nice dad and were
having a great conversation with him when all of a sudden this man
came up to us and he wouldn't leave us alone and was just going off
about our religion, he was literally shrieking and right up in my
face. It's so interesting to interact with these people because they
run up to us and tell us how wrong we are without even letting us say
one word. When I looked into this man's eyes all I saw was pure fear.
We walked away and everything was alright (welcome to missionary life)
but I was just a little shaken up, reflecting on what had just
happened as we walked. Suddenly the thought of Joseph Smith popped
into my mind. It's hard to even tell you the level of reverence and
love I have acquired on my mission for our young farm-boy prophet, who
endured that treatment as a child seeking the truth. There is
definitely a war raging in this world and it is so confusing, I can't
imagine how confusing it must have been for Joseph Smith at 14 years
old to have to face that. I feel blessed and privileged to have
experiences that bring me closer to him and help me understand the
magnitude of what we have. We have the restored Gospel of Jesus
Christ. And it's so funny to me because as these people were trying to
reason with us and tear this church apart, every word out of their
mouth made me more sure that I belong to the true church of God. The
dad who we stopped, witnessing me and Sister Benson being persecuted
on the street, actually stood up for us because he noticed how we were
calm and respectful to everyone that approached us. No real
representative of Jesus Christ will ever run up to someone on the
street and treat them with nothing short of perfect love. The truth
has most definitely been restored❤️


Hurrah for Israel!

XOXO
Sister Barnes