"Uhh.. you can't get in the way of grace, Sister Bartsch. Jesus is going to hug you no matter WHAT you do. And you will just have to deal with it." -Elder Hansen, taken waaaay out of context.

Hey there, friends!

Look! She's taller than a companion for a moment.

Time is a-flying. This week I found some wonderful new investigators while I was on exchanges with Sister Elms. It's sad how some of the coolest miracles happen when my companion is in another area. Exchanges are hard. But I had a great day with Sister Elms! I took her to meet Miss Kaye. Yall have gotten a lot of quotes from her, so here is a picture to put with the name :) This lady and I are best friends now. She can't wait for me to get home and talk to her on Facebook. She calls me Sister Burch and teases me about everything, I love her. This week's quote: "If yall hear a woman that went flipped da gourd its miss kaye" 💕

Haha I just helped a guy next to me spell "inconvenience" and he announced to the whole computer lab that "this gurl is smurt!" ...oh, now he is telling me about his divorce.. emotional roller coaster going on over here.

ANYWAYS. I saw Rex this week, too. That is always fun. He recited a poem he wrote about Christ and said he will write it down for us to take next time. I will try to get a recording of him telling it and share it with yall. Rex accepted a baptism date and has plans to come to church :) We will be helping him quit smoking, so pray for him please!

This weekend we had our Mission Leadership Council in Jackson. It was wonderful. Road trips with our Zone Leaders are always fun, we took some good pictures. But the meetings themselves were great. Two brothers from the missionary department of the Church came to teach us. We talked about planning for almost 6 hours. It sounds boring, but it was wonderful. They gave us suggestions that will bring a lot of positive change to the mission! I am expecting much more success in every zone, and many more miracles.  We will be teaching our zones what we were taught tomorrow in a Zone Conference. I hope we can bring as much excitement as the brethren from Salt Lake did :)

President Olson also taught us more about the Doctrine of Christ: Faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Those five steps make up our Saviour's gospel and should be a cycle we walk every day, all our lives. It's so simple and wonderful. He asked us to apply these steps to our personal lives even more, to gain a stronger testimony of their necessity, so we can teach them from the heart. I have loved pondering this and my testimony has certainly grown. I know that faith is behind everything we do! Simply put, as we use our faith it becomes stronger. Faith in Christ and his Atonement leads us to repent, to have a desire to be baptized and make promises to God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost helps us to keep those promises and live happily as we endure to the end. It's beautiful and simple and I am so grateful for the happiness that this Gospel brings. President reminded us to emphasize the importance of this Gospel being restored in our day in every single lesson :)

A miracle happened. Yesterday we walked into church.. and guess who was there smiling at us?? RUSSELL. I didn't write it in my newsletters, but Russell had dropped us a few weeks ago, we hadn't had a lesson with him in about a month. He didn't say he wanted us to start back up again, but he was in church and he was happy to be there, and that is enough for me :) An older couple in the ward invited him over for Family Home Evening with us, we will be watching a movie and eating pizza and hopefully figuring out how he has been doing. Also, the whole ward was fasting for missionary work yesterday, so that is cool.

I could just keep talking about this week, but this email is kind of long, and yall probably have stuff to do :) So do I.

I love you all so much! Have a blessed week!


Sister Bartsch

1: Kaye's Nephew, S. Elms, Kaye, Me, Kaye's Son
2. Kaye with a bird on her head. His name is BayBay and she loves him so dearly
3: Me loving windy humidity and exchanges. Sister Elms takes a lot of pictures
4: Rolled coins for like, 3 hours at the thrift store.

After a chocolate run to the gas station.  Sometimes you just need chocolate!

JACKSON:

1. Landmark watermelon
2. Creepy abandoned Jackson Hotel. The windows are all broken and the drapes blow out in the wind.. 
3. Us, Zone Leaders, and Mural
4. Obama head sculpture. It looks like paper mache in a tree.

Photo scavenger hunt with our sisters.  The caption was "I can't believe we fit thur!!"