Friends @ Church wooo!

I dont know how another week went by but im not sad about it! Such a good week in the life of a Blairsville missionary! 

Tuesday:
We met with Teresa!! She is so prepared its incredible! The only downfall is she doesnt see her potential and how God wants her to progress in the gospel. She ia truly so amazing but doesn't give herself credit. We are meeting again this week and hopefully can talk about our divine potential! God wants us all to keep progressing so we can someday become like he is! Its such an amazing gift hes given us!
We also met with a guy we met working at chick fil a!! He contacted us after we gave him our card so that was pretty cool! Hes only 16 and LOVES religion! Wow he had lots of questions & hopefully we answered then correct lol! We gave him a book of mormon so pray he starts reading it!!

Wednesday:
We met with Bessy! Bessy is so funny, shes this little old lady who has been taught everything a bunch of times but still think her baptism counts. Lol! We read the book of mormon with her and she keeps her commitments to keep reading on her own so thats real good!

Thursday:
Zone Conference!! This was one of my favorite zone conferences! It was all about obedience and how blessings come when we are obedient. Something i love that was said was "if the apostles thought it was important enough to put it in our handbook it probably is" ive never thought about rules coming straight from Jesus, to the Apostles, to us! Pretty cool! Something else we did was mneumonics! Mneumonics are a way of memorizing by pictures! President Marsh has creared them for the Book of Mormon and also D&C! During zone conference we went through and started to memorize what it talks about in each of the chapters! Its a really weird concept but its crazy how well it works!

Friday: Exchanges! I went down to cumming & had such a good time! Its so fun going back to the city! We tracted, taught lessons, and ate with members! We even helped a old lady set up a dating account! So fun hahaha

Saturday:
We had lunch with one of our favorite members!! She isnt able to come to church because she is really weak and cant take the chance of getting sick! She is so sweet and takes way good care of us missionaries! The rest of the day was full of tracting in the cold hahaha but some people were nice so it was good haha

Sunday: ASHLEY AND CHRIS CAME TO CHURCH!!! ok best day ever!!! Ashley and Chris came to church and brought their THREE LITTLE kids!! Ahhhh I couldnt of been more happy! They are so prepared and its been so cool to see Gods hand as we teach them and watch them progress! It is all Him and I am lucky enough to see this miracle happen right before my eyes!! After church they texted us and told us they loved it and will definitely be back next week! I wish you all could meet them and be apart of this because its so incredible!!

I have loved studying come follow me for the Book of Mormon this year! I have already learned so many new things and want to invite you all, if you havent already, to START!! There is so many amazing and incredible things that we can learn from the Book of Mormon and something different everytime! I love being a missionary and im so thankful the Lord gave me the privilege to serve. In zone conference they had us think about what our missions mean to us and my mission is such a blessing to me. I get to experience Gods miracles everyday! There is no better place for me to be than on a mission :) awe i love missions with my entire heart!

I love all yall too!! Stay happy & be you!!

Xoxo, Sister Barton 

BEST WEEK

Hello!! Me again! Time is going so fast i feel like January just started but somehow its more than halfway over! Haha! This week was so busy and so good!! Busy mission life is the best life!

Monday: we had Zone P-day and played Volleyball! It was really fun and I was able to see my bestie sister Graff wooo! In the evening we werent able to meet with Teresa because she was stuck in North Carolina :/ hopefully this week!

Tuesday: we had 3 lessons today!! We met with Luke who the sisters taught in the past! We read 3 nephi 11 with him and invited him to finish it. He thought it was really cool reading about christ coming to the Americas. He believes the book of mormon is the word of God but has no intent on coming to church! But we are persistent with him so hopefully he will come soon :)
We also taught Art! Ok this is for a long story but we got a team up and.... the member brought her catholic friend and basically they took over the lesson HAHAHA turned into more of a bashing session but ya know i guess it was what Art needed... maybe?
Ok now heres for the BEST PART!!! last week when we were tracting we met Ashley! She said we could come back without us saying much and we scheduled an appointment and left. We didn't think she was very interested because it seemed like she just wanted us to leave hahaha BUT tuesday was the appointment we set up so we decided what better to do than to go? So... WE WENT! We knocked on her door and she let us right in! We started talking and ended up teaching her WHOLE FAMILY the plan of salvation! Her and her husband Chris were both so reseptive! (Yes Ashley & Chris just like my cousins! Its meant to be!) They had so many questions and when we aswered them they kept saying "oh ya i can see that" "that makes sense!" The spirit was so strong we walked out there so happy wow best feeling!!

Wednesday: Art called us wondering about our lesson and we were able to clear somethings up and he still wants to meet!! Tbh MIRACLE after that lesson! We tracted for a while tuesday but we found the best neighborhood full of nice people so it was really good! We also didnt more service and painted another room! Wow im gonna be pro by the time i get home hahaha
We taught the Jones kids!! They are the best! There us 4 of them and they have been taught before but because of some family things the sisters had to stop teaching them! We are now able to teach them again and were so excited!! We went over the restoration and it went really good! They are very smart and hopefully we can help them work to baptism!

Thursday: we taught Ashley and Chris the Restoration! They were very engaged and Ashley didnt know much about Christ so we were able to teach her more! At the end of our lesson when we were talking about the book of mormon and they both had this very excited look on their face and chris says "ummm do you happen to have extra copies of those?" And Ashley says "I was just about to ask the same thing!" We were like UMMM YES! You can have 10!! Hahaha such a little thing but means so much as a missionary! The spirit is so strong in their lessons its amazing!!


Friday: we taught Art again!! Ok listen to this!! The first lesson/bash thing we talked about coffee and he showed up to this lesson with hot coco instead of coffee! ok so cute! We taught Art the restoration, he didnt seem to sure about things but tbh thats pretty normal at first. We invited him to read the intro for himself and bore our testimonies so hopefully he keeps our commitments so he can findout the truth for himself! He still wants to meet and come to church so we are very hopeful with him!

Saturday: was a full day of freezing cold tracting in the wet rain! But we made it through and after a week of all good days we needed one that was a little more rough hahaha

Sunday: we had a great time at church and a new family moved in and thats HUGE for the branch so we are excited!! We got to visit some members, one who just got home after a few months in the hospital so that was special!

I am seeing miracles after miracles out here on the mission. I wouldnt change these experiences for anything and i am so grateful i get to have them. I wish all of you could be here with me to have these same experiences!! I love y'all and stay happy and keep being you!!

Xoxo, Sister Barton

Another week another day!

Hello!! Welcome to the life of Sister Barton!!! I lost a companion this week so that was kinda sad!! Sister Venema are so blessed to still be comps and put our ideas together to get blairsville THRIVING!! 

Monday: we spent all day packing Sister White but in the evening we taught Teresa!!! Teresa is my absolute favorite! She is friends with one of our members and what got her interested was... she noticed a big difference in her friend (the member) when she came back to church and she wants that for herself. She is so prepared!! We are planning on putting her on date this week so pray she notices this is her next step!!

Tuesday: Transfers!! We woke up at 4:30 to drive down to lilburn to drop off Sister White! It didnt really hit me that she was acutally leaving us! We went to transfer meeting met her new companion and off we went. The rest if the day Sister Venema and I felt soooo weird. We got back to the apartment and moved her bed and desk and everything and it literally felt like we were missing something. Such a weird feeling. Tbh i cried a few times hahaha i've love all my companions & never want them to leave me. Hopefully i dont jinks myself.

Wednesday: Things still felt a little off because we were missing a person so it was pretty quiet hahaha. We started tracting but everywhere had already been tracted so we literally had NO WHERE TO GO! It was a weird feeling but thats what we get for being in a town of 600 ppl. HAHAHA
We had a lesson with Isabel & talked about baptism! She seemed to understand the need to be baptized by the right authority and all the great things but said shes to busy right now to focus on baptism. :( We are praying she will make the gospel a priority in her life!!

Thursday: Dont worry things got better!! One of our members took us around our area and showed us hot spots of populated places!! Its funny because even the populated areas have about 10 - 15 homes so we can knock those pretty fast which it takes at least 7 miles to get there so thats 14 round trip and we get about 20 miles total a day! Soooo Yes time to get creative woooo!! We have had so many ideas this week and little tended mercies to help us get through the beginning of the week!

Friday: we tracted one of our new places and met a lot of nice people it felt so good because we knew this was exactly where God wanted us to be. It was also so warm and rainy it felt like summer! We also did more service at the SAFE home and painted another room!! It was so cute because they called us and said "you girls did such a good job painting would you be willing to come back and do more?" THANKS TO MY MOM for teaching me all about painting! 

Saturday: we had our first district council for the new transfer and got to meet the new missionaries we are serving around which was so fun!! After we had lunch with a member and she told us she wants to be a missionary with us haha she wants to be our personal uber driver and feed us!! Hahahah In the evening there was a huge storm here in Blairsville! We were on tornado watch and had so much lighting, rain, and thunder!!

Sunday: we woke up and there were trees cut in half from the storm!! Crazy!! We had our wonderful service at the branch and then went with a member to visit some less actives!! I love sundays!! We also drove down to cumming for a ice cream social with the zone!! So fun!!

Missions are the best so everyone GO!!!(if you can and have the opportunity:))

Love Y'all!! Awe
Xoxo, Sister Barton

Yay for 2020!!

Started of 2020 with a good week full of finding!! We found 9 new people and one of them was a family!! We are so excited and blarisville is now starting to progress! Heres a little about my week!!

Tuesday: New Years Eve!!! We tracted into a crazy drunk lady at 4pm so we decided to stop tracting after that hahahah to be honest that sums up blairsville pretty well! Before that tho we tracted into a guy named Art who just moved here from Florida! He said he was actually looking for a church and that he thinks its so cool we just happened to knock on his door! He's so prepared!! We are going back this week so pray for him & us!!

Wednesday: New Years day!! We felt tracting wouldnt be the most productive thing because of all the hangovers so we heart attacked some of the people we are teaching & some members!! It was really good and they loved it! We left blairsville around 4pm to travel down the the city for our temple trip the next day!

Thursday: Temple Trip!!! Ohhh how i loveee to see the Temple!!! Going to the temple is such a good break from the world and everyday life! We had the privilege to do an edowment session as well as baptisms! Sister Venema & I got to be the witnesses for baptisms and it was so cool! I want to do that everytime hahaha! They had us sit in these tall chairs and watch over everything! So fun!! We also treated ourselves with cheesecake factory after and wow i couldnt be more blessed! It definitely felt good to be back in the city!!
Friday: we had a lesson with a guy named Luke that we knocked into earlier this week!! He has met with missionaries in the past and actually still has his book of mormon! We went over and read with him & it he told us that he still has been reading out of it and isnt sure why the missionaries stopped coming by! Really cool!! We also tracted into a family that we are going to start teaching!!

Saturday: we went to a part of our area that is pretty far so we packed lunches and spent the day out there!! We visited a few members and tracted so much!! We are really focusing our time on certain sections of our area & it is making all the difference!!

Sunday: we had church with our little branch & awe i love it!! We tracted all day again and in the evening we got transfer calls!! Sister white is leaving & Sister Venema & I are staying!! Wooo im really excited to have another transfer in blairsville with all the old people even tho this area can be VERY scary hahahahah

I am so blessed to be a missionary and excited for come follow me this year to be centered on the book of mormon. By reading the book of mormon we can learn more about our savior and draw closer to him. The teachings of the book of mormon are true and when we live them there is a gate of happiness that opens up to all of us! I am so grateful to be able to have this understanding for myself and I invite you all to keep reading the book of mormon everyday or as often as you can!!

Love Y'all ♡

Xoxo, Sister Barton