"Well, he stood too close to the screen door, didn't he!"

​Has another week really flown by? My goodness. We're already halfway through the transfer! What?!

Y'all. I love this place. I love these people. And I love being a missionary. It's been a good week :) 

On Wednesday I went on exchanges with my new Sister Training Leader, Sister Kendall! We brought Sunny with us, taught a bunch of lessons, and had probably too much fun. That night, she mentioned she might want to maybe  go into cosmetology when she gets home. I asked her if she had ever dyed hair before, she said  no. I asked her if she wanted to learn, she said yes. There was a mystery tube of hair dye and a bottle of developer in the closet, so she dyed my hair! And then there was some left over so I dyed hers! Luckily it was a brown-ish colour :) It was a good time. And our companion's faces when they came home the next day were priceless!

Sister Bartsch and Kendall after dying their hair!

Our mission has a new goal! Every companionship is working towards having a baptism in November. When we make it that's 100 BAPTISMS. Sister Maughan and I are currently teaching 7 people/families that we have really high hopes for who are making real progress in the Gospel. It's wonderful. We pray for them all the time! If you want to help us out, pray for the mission!

To explain the quote in the subject of my email, we watched Meet the Mormons at Sister Adams' house with Sunny and Don on Friday night. There was a really freckled-faced kid on the screen and Brother Adams (age 92) pipes up and said "Well, he stood too close to the screen door, didn't he!" He is a man of few words and Sister Maughan and I have been laughing about that ever since. You might not think it is funny, but it really broke the mood when everyone was crying through the story. Good 'ol Brother Adams.

I have a Southernism to share with yall! Obviously I have loved it since I first heard it, but I've grown a new appreciation as I have started to use it in my own vocab :) "Fixin' to" (verb) used in place of "going to, preparing for, or getting ready to" such as "fixin' to take a shower, fixin' to go to work, or fixin' to start readin my Bible again." Sometimes they don't even get the whole word out and it sounds more like a fi'in to. AND I THOUGHT I WASN'T LEARNING A LANGUAGE. 

Everyone thought the world was ending last night, too. I heard that was a common concern? I got flyers on my car and stuff.. and lots of people asked us what we knew and whether our Prophet warned us..

"L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N." By Noah and the Whale was stuck in my head all week :)
​
Like I said, I really love this place and these people. I have such an appreciation for the Faith of the South. And whether these people join the Church or not, I am grateful to help them come closer to their Savior Jesus Christ. One of my favourite quotes from the Women's Session of General Conference was: 

"When we serve in the name of the Lord with purity of heart, we reflect the Savior's love and give others a glimpse of Heaven" -Sister McConkie

The Church is so true and I am so happy out here. I love you all! Have a blessed week :)

Sister Bartsch

P.S. I love my companion!

You ladies shouldn't be going to the laundreteria

Oh, how I love being a trainer. This last week has been so fun with Sister Maughan. She is picking up her training super fast and is making me feel like a proud mama every day :) thanks for praying for us! 

Easily  my favourite. Pretty much describes how our training is going ;)
Just kidding.

A couple cool things happened this week. Remember Yolanda? My Saturday miracle last week? We taught her again and she shared some really special experiences with us. This woman has lived a rough life and has had to overcome a lot of trials. She reads one of those day-by-day books that helps her to remember to pray and draw closer to God. A few days before we had met, she read about how God often sends people in our lives as answers to our prayers. The book invited her to pray for people who will be true friends and good listeners or something like that. She realized after she shared her life story that we were her answer! We had literally said maybe three words that whole first half of our appointment. As soon as she shared that, I shared with her our side of the story. That she had been an answer to our praying all week. We knew there was someone we needed to find on Nattin Street and we knew that someone was her. The Spirit was so strong. We see Yolanda again tomorrow and I'm so excited. 

On Friday, we had parked our car to go knock on Rodney's door. He wasn't home and we were going to leave when Robert drove by! I love Robert, but I feel really uncomfortable around him and for some reason I didn't want him to see us get in the car and leave. Lots of missionaries have problems with people recognizing the missionary car and following them (dang bike rack). So we walked around the block. We passed a couple of houses that we could have tried and taught lessons to, but I STILL felt like we needed to keep walking. So we did! And then we walked passed this woman who stopped us by saying "Okay this is going to sound crazy, but were yall visiting with someone who lived on Bonn Street?" Sister Maughan is still new and had no idea. We were teaching a lot of people on Bonn Street! She said "my dad was being visited by two young girls" I knew exactly who she was talking about. Her dad's name is Clifton and this man was so wonderful to us. She told us he had passed away and that the house was full of family and she had to get out and take a walk. She cried a little bit as she shared how much of a Daddy's girl she was and that he always told her that those church girls that stopped by would really brighten his day. I have no idea if we will ever see her again, but I gave her our phone number, said a prayer, and let her finish her walk! As we were parting she said "THIS is why I needed a walk" and I just looked at Sister Maughan and we both were thinking "No, no, this is why WE took a walk." 

We got bit by about 40 bugs. No one runs through the grass here. Bad idea.
We thought we could make it to the path in 10 seconds but no. 

The simplest of miracles happen every day for me out here. Maybe it is because I'm a missionary, but probably it's because I am praying for miracles and watching for them. I know Heavenly Father loves the people here so much. I'm working every day to make sure they know that!

I love you all! 
Have a blessed week!

Sister Bartsch

This is from The Church Of The Cross. The cross is almost so big it's scary.
 Ah, I love the South.

Did I ever send you this picture of the lizard? I found it in my closet and it scared me to bits.

Y'all the ones handing out the Books of Normans?

Sister Maughan survived a week! I think that means I am doing something right :) I love this girl. She is shy, but her personality is coming out ever so slowly. It's been fun :) Being a trainer is definitely the challenge I needed! I am learning and growing so much and I'm so grateful for such a sweet companion.

So something neat happened. Starting Tuesday, our Zone started planning a Zone-wide tracting (knocking door-to-door) hour from 3-4 on Saturday afternoon. We were told to pray to see miracles during that hour in EVERY prayer we said as a companionship and by ourselves (that's a lot of prayers). So we did! We prayed and prayed and prayed. We even prayed during our weekly planning session on Friday about WHERE to tract. We picked a section on our area map, prayed about it, and both picked 5 streets that stood out to us. Afterwards, Nattin Street was the only one we had both written down. Nattin it was! (I have no idea if anyone else in the zone did this).

So then Saturday comes along and we have an appointment with Joe at 1:00. As per usual, his daughter tells us Joe isn't home. As per NOT usual, I say "Well can we share a message with yall instead?" She reluctantly agreed so we came inside. There was a woman on the couch, her name was Yolanda. We introduced ourselves, said a prayer, and started teaching her about the Restoration! Joe's daughter wandered in and out of the lesson and didn't seem to care, but Yolanda really did care! She was super into the discussion and accepted a baptism date! We get to the end of the lesson and set up a return appointment. We ask for her address and GUESS WHERE SHE LIVES? NATTIN STREET. Nattin street has like 10 houses on it, I was pretty surprised. Anyways, we were tracting the street during 3-4 and we didn't remember to check her house number, so we just knocked them all. Right as we were about to leave the area, Yolana pulled into her driveway. She lives in one of the first homes we tried at the beginning of the hour and we would have completely missed her :) I love little miracles. Yolanda gave us a big wave and her little daughter came and gave us a big hug. Like I said, it was pretty neat.

We are still struggling with progression down here. But we are starting to see a couple people standing out from our dozens of potentials. Keep praying for us as we try to sift through our long lists! I love this place. It is so full of wonderful people that I love so much. The Church is true, God is good, and the Atonement is real.
Have a blessed week!
Sister Bartsch

Current favourite scripture: Acts 17:27

27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

I had my baby!

Her name is Sister Maughan and she is from Cache Valley. She's super cute and super nervous and we only have one picture together :) She is quite a bit taller than me and we think that is funny. That's about as far as we've gotten so far :) I LOVE HER ALREADY

Fixin' to be a good Transfer!

And I finished another transfer! I have been a missionary for a whole 3 months - time has FLOWN!! 

This week was craaaazy. 34 lessons. My new record! Sister Dobbins and I were both HEALTHY the entire 7 days and that was such a miracle, so we made the best of it! 

The best part of this week? Sunny fed us 3 times. Every time a member asks us what we want for dinner, I ask for the Southern Experience. And I never get it! So, leave it to Sunny to grant my every wish :) We made fried chicken FINALLY and it was delicious. It hurt the next day, but it was great. She seriously stuffs us, spoils us, fills us with joy, and sends us with leftovers. Sunny is our best friend out here, when times get tough, she is who we call. Every time. 

Despite our high numbers and fun times with Sunny, this week got pretty discouraging. There are so many people that are hard to contact, don't keep their commitments, and reschedule appointment after appointment. Most of them have baptism dates and say they really want the blessings of the gospel! It's hard to go week after week not seeing progress in these people, we love them so much! Monique keeps telling us not to give up on her, and we are trying our best! I think the hardest part for me is that for so many of these, we pour out our souls in testimony, we go back to the darkest part of our lives, share personal experiences, and invite others to feel the love of their Savior and they still don't give prayer a try.  I know that I was sent to this little city in Louisiana because there are people here who need me. Who need my testimony, my trials, and my words to relate with. It's just not easy to share all of this with so many people, I like to keep personal experiences personal! But you don't always know who you're looking for and you especially don't always know if something you say pricks their hearts (Acts 2:37-38)! So you just always share. And I am not sure I will ever get used to that. 

There was a lizard in my house this week. 

My District Leader died, meaning he finished his mission. So our theme for our District Meeting was  his funeral. It was fun in a weird way. Missionaries get weird, guys. 

My Zone Leader turned 20 yesterday and we had a party at their trailer. They live in a trailer park and it is awesome, I'm so jealous of their porch. I wish I had pictures, sorry! 

Aaaaaand Sister Dobbins got transferred. She is going to Ridgeland, Mississippi to be a Sister Training Leader! I know she will be fantastic. She's been such a good example to me and I know the Sisters in her zone will love her, too. I'M GOING TO BE TRAINING!! I don't even know my companion's name yet, but she will be coming this evening. If the library is still open we will stop by and I will send yall a picture :) In the mission, we are 'in training' for 12 weeks. I just finished my 12 weeks on Sunday, and this new Sister will be just beginning hers! I am so excited. But I also know I will be praying a LOT as I take over my area and teach a brand new missionary everything I have learned! pray for me. 

Thank you all AGAIN for all your support. I will have to come home and make yall some fried chicken & waffles. 

Have a blessed week! 

Sister Bartsch

These bug bites just don't let up and they keep her up at night!

HAVE A BLESSED WEEK!