He is Risen!

This was my all time favourite week in my mission so far! It has been SO GOOD. My companions are such legends. The Trinity will be dying tomorrow as me and Sister Cook will be going back to Watford, and we are so excited, but so sad to see our trio life in Hayes come to an end. It has been amazing! We found 9 new investigators this week, it was epic. 

We had a fun p-day with our huge district on Monday and played mini golf! We had such a good time! This week we had some world class dinner appointments! The members fed us every single night his week, and two nights we even had lunch appointments as well. Can we just give a round of applause to these amazing saints? They have no idea how much it means to us as missionaries. One of these amazing members is Brother Hidalgo, a retired chef from Ecuador. He has fed us twice this week, the best meals of my life and I'm not even lying. Whenever we go over there, he also invites all of our investigators and so we just have a huge awesome gathering and fit a lesson in.

This week we also had dinner with a sister who served a mission in Portugal and her cutest ever family! Their youngest son literally attacked me and I spent the night sitting on the floor playing legoes with him while my companions heard all about his mom's mission. It was so funny. They made us traditional Brazilian food and it was sooooo good!

We had a crazy awesome miracle on Saturday, we went finding and the very first person we stopped was AWESOME. K is the most legit person in the world. We stopped him and he is just super prepared, we gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to come to church on Easter. Then yesterday morning, Easter Sunday, he actually showed up!!! And he loved it!!!! We taught Gospel Principles and we had so many people in class! When we got in there, someone had left tons of these weird paper hats and everyone put one on, we had our lesson, and ate lots of Cadbury Cream eggs all together as a class, Easter was total blissful happiness. We put our friend E, on date for baptism earlier in the week and she is doing so good! I love these people so much. We have been travelling everywhere on buses like crazy!

Fun fact about serving a mission in England: it is making me very confused about my identity. On the exact same day, within an hour, I got mistaken for a Canadian, an Irish girl, and a Mexican. What. We dropped by the chapel during an Easter activity and out of the blue, this member was like "you have such a gentle, girly voice". Haha! And this man on the street was like "Are you from Spain? You have Spanish eyes." A lot of people also think I'm from America but in the South, and I also get Italy a lot. I just get random commentary of people's observations like this all day every day. I don't even know how I talk anymore or who I am to be honest:))))) 

On Thursday we had Zone Conference in London and it was the best one I've ever had so far! We really just focused on Easter and on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the spirit was so incredibly strong. President Stevens (I will try not to write 50 paragraphs about how amazing he is and how much I love him and how he is such a powerful and comforting man and how I don't know if I could even do this without his guidance) he sang "I Stand All Amazed" for us as his closing testimony of the Saviour. He started crying during it too. It was the most touching thing in the world to be there, the entire day was so special. 

I woke up yesterday on Easter Sunday with the words to "He Is Risen" just instantly ringing in my head. Immediately I just fell to my knees crying and thanked Heavenly Father for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I have felt so much happiness as I have reflected on it. I have an unshakeable testimony of Christ and I know that He really did overcome the world. He really did conquer death. And He really does live! 

He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days' prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered; man is free.

Christ has won the victory.

Remember it!

XOXO

Sister Barnes

The Trinity

Well, I am now in Hayes (super duper close to London!!!) and in a trio! And I LOVE IT. My companions are Sister Cook and Sister Corrèa! Sister Cook is from San Diego and we seriously have so much in common! We have the same favourite colour, she studied communications at BYU-I, the same thing that I will study when I get back and go to university, we like the same music, and we even have the same deodorant:) We just get along so well! And Sister Corrèa is actually from São Paulo! She is 25 and her English is perfect, she talks faster than the speed of light! She is such an incredible missionary, I love her so so much. We have been having so much fun and have nicknamed ourselves "the trinity", haha but really we just have so many great conversations all day every day!

Finding has been so fun as a trio, no one can get away from us! We have been finding one new investigator a day easily and I am loving it. We are now apart of the Wembley district, the biggest district in the mission and so that's been really cool! Me and Sister Cook will only be here for two weeks, it will be hard to leave because we are in love with the ward. Yesterday at church we had our investigator come and he really enjoyed the services. We talked to a man on the bus on our way to church and he decided to come with us, he was dressed like someone from the Hunger Games Capital but as missionaries we don't judge. This man followed us off the bus and we were so excited for him to come to church! We started to make conversation with him and every question we would ask he would say, "it's a secret". He was honestly just super creepy and I think he might have had schizophrenia. You should've seen the members'

faces when he walked into the chapel. It's okay though, he wordlessly got up and left as soon as it started. And we didn't chase after him:) 

After church yesterday we had a meal with the prettiest Brazilian lady, Eleni, and her baby daughter Charlotte! It was such a sunny day and sooooo warm so we had a BBQ outside. I had the loveliest time. And then we did our weekly planning in the park! When the sun actually shines in England, you need to take advantage of it:) it has been a brilliant week and I am so thankful to be here.

My testimony of prayer has been strengthened a lot this week, and I'm thankful to have a Heavenly Father that will extend tender mercies and give us advice. I know that he is always patiently listening to us and helping us along.

Peace and blessings! 

XOXO

1/3 of The Trinity 

10 Points to Gryffindor

This week was epic in every way imaginable. We went to Harry Potter
World last P-day with Elder Dalley and Pasten and we all had the time
of our lives. It was so amazing! I feel like I've really lived life to
the fullest now haha. Seriously it was one of the best days of my
entire life and just so dang good! Loved every minute!
Also, being able to watch General Conference on a mission may be the
most inspiring thing in the universe. How good was conference this
year!? It blew me away. Seriously I just feel so much strength and
determination to do missionary work now, more than ever before. And
was it just me, or did the Mormon Tabernacle Choir get 10 times better
in just 6 months? They have always been incredible but this time I was
just about crying as soon as they sang their first song. And the
talks! They were so indescribably awesome!! I absolutely loved every
one of them. Watching it as a missionary was cool because it used to
seem like General Conference would last forever, but this weekend it
felt like it lasted only 5 minutes! I had all of our investigators in
mind the entire time and I think that not only were my prayers
answered, but each of theirs as well. God really knows us. And I am so
pumped for the new temples! One in Pocatello!! And our awesome recent
convert is from Kenya and has just been talking non-stop about how he
wants to build a temple there! You should've seen his face! He brought
one of his friends, K, to watch it with us! She is such a lovely
person and she loved Conference! She is from Hungary and we were able
to give her a Book of Mormon in Hungarian that she is so excited to
start reading! It was the best conference miracle:)
Transfers are tomorrow and something pretty crazy is happening. Sister
Benson is going to Stevenage and I am being transferred down to Hayes,
in a trio! I will be with Sister Correa and Sister Cook, after 2 weeks
in Hayes, I will bring Sister Cook with me and come back to Watford!
Sister Correa will be training a new greenie that gets here in 2
weeks, Sister Correa is from Peru and such a beast! And Sister Cook is
a transfer younger than me, from California, and probably the nicest
most adorable person in the world. I am so excited to be her
companion! Way weird though that there won't be any sisters in Watford
for 2 weeks. What an adventure! I am so happy and excited!

Have an awesome week!

XOXO
Sister Barnes