Waterloo, 4th of July! 6/27-7/6

  So last week and now this week has been pretty crazy : )!  I didn't get to email monday because it was the 4th and tues we had zone conference then a lesson and we didn't get home to 9:30! its awesome being busy though.

     First off fourth of July was way fun!  We spent most the day with one of the members in our area.  We went to an airshow and fair from around 10:30-3:00 Then went back to his house in Smithton, It's a town in our area.  We had a way good barbecue at his house then lit off a bunch of fireworks he had some sweet mortar fireworks and had a pretty cool firework show in his backyard ha.  It was a lot of fun and its real funny how crazy people are out here about fireworks.  Oh ya our mission president allowed the whole mission to stay out until 10:30 so we could watch fireworks and stuff.   So fireworks are illegal in Illinois but not Missouri still all night people were shootin off the huge illegal fireworks EVERYWHERE! ha.  It was crazy to because when we where headin home there was smoke everywhere because of all the fireworks.   Overall the whole day was way fun, and everyone at the members house weren't members so it was really good visiting with people there to.

  The most significant thing that happened last week and this week was teaching Rich, Tiffany, Connie(Tif's mom), Sherry(Connie's Friend).  It was kind of interesting and hard to focus on teaching one person at a time because all 4 of them are really on 4 totally different levels and we had to teach them all at once.  Sunday was a way good day for Rich, He came to church with Tiffany again and had a good time at church then found out he know one of the members there from high school so they talked for about an hour or so... they both missed sunday school but it was really good because now were going to teach Rich and Tiffany at that members house sometime this week!  Then Rich talked to our branch president for about an hour after church and then came over to Connie's house (his ex-wife) for the appointment we had set up with them.  We went over really to talk to Connie and answer question she had so that she would ok Tiffany getting baptized because that's pretty much all were waiting for.  We found out though that her friend Sherry was staying with her because she has been having a lot of problems with things and wanted to get away from the environment she was in (sherry normaly lives in Kansas City).   So we taught pretty much the whole restoration and answered questions then found out that Sherry wanted a blessing because she's trying to get off drugs and start living right again.  I guess Rich or somebody had told her about priesthood blessing a little.  So we talked about that for a little and gave her a blessing.  It was very spiritual and a way good blessing!  Every single person in the room was crying when it was over.  The spirit was way strong probably one of the strongest times that I've felt it on my mission. 
     We had a second lesson with all of them again last night and it was pretty good to.  We talked more about baptism and committed Rich, Connie and Sherry to prepare for baptism.  Then set a date for Tiffany to be baptized on July 23rd!  I'm way excited for all of them ha I want to say the family... and I guess it is, just not a normal family haha.  Tiffany is still a little scared and is not sure she's ready yet, she definitely wants to be baptized and we told her that she's more then ready.  She really is ready though and is doing really well, She's about as ready as it gets for baptism : ).

   We had a good lesson with Rich Junior today, his dad was busy working.  It was pretty good hopefully we can keep teaching him.  Other then that it's we havn't really been able to sit down and teach much.  It's been really hard to catch people when their not busy doing something and a lot of investigators went out of town early last week for the 4th of July weekend.  So I'm really excited for this I really feel like great things are going to happen here in Waterloo!

   We did have a really good week though I'd say we had a seed planting week ha.  We tracted a lot and placed a lot of Book of Mormon's. The cool thing is we found a lot of people who wanted us to come back so hopefully you here more about them in the coming weeks : ).  Hope everyone is doing good, Thanks dad for the pictures! Love seein you guys ; ). 


Elder Barta

P.S.  Here's a picture from the airshow, and one of our finding ideas that we decided not to do ha.

Scripture for the week,  Moses 6:63  All things testify of Christ!

My First Post? Waterloo 6/20-6/27

So don't know much about this blogging thing lets see how it works... here's this weeks email...

   This week has been a pretty good week!  I also just got a blog set up so I think I'm going to start posting on that? not really sure how a blog works ha but I'm sure dad will help me figure it out : ).  So I thought summers would be brutal out here, and they kind of are but so far this summer has been awesome ha.  There's been a lot of storms that have come through so usually like a day before than a few days after theres a big temperature drop.  So We've been enjoying like 70's and low 80's weather the last few weeks : ).  We saw a funnel cloud a couple weeks ago to, I really want to see a tornado... just don't really want to see the damage it does.  We keep saying we hope we see one land in a field or something than end before it hits any houses or buildings ha.

     So right now Tiffany is probably the closest person have to being baptised. She has been doing really well and wants to join the church.  Her dad isn't doing very good though,  he told us he wants to go rob a bank so he can get thrown in prison and get 3 hot's and a cot.... not sure how serious he is but were still trying to work with him.   But Tiffany will probably be baptised some time next month we havn't set a date yet because she wants to wait til her mom can come to church and check it out first.  She's already starting to get a lot of opposition now that she's talking about being baptised.   We've been teaching 3 of her friends and now a couple of them that were teaching and majority of her other friends are giving her a really hard time for wanting to join our church.  It's really sad, when they first started saying stuff like "are you really going to convert?" we told her that if their good friends then they will support you no matter what.  Now their telling her she's crazy and giving her a really hard time.  She went to part of youth conference this last weekend with one of her friends and she really liked it but one of her freinds that came complained the whole time and was really rude.  So her friend called her mom to pick them up early even though Tiffany didn't want to leave.  Her friend wanted to leave because she'd rather be tanning.  THEN when the friends mom came she chewed Tiffany out the whole way home for taking her daughter to a Mormon activity... Luckily Tiffany is still solid and isn't giving up even though she really has no one she knows supporting her at this point. 

    This whole thing really is Testimony builder for me and and for her.  We talked to her about how opposition and anti-mormon people come about because satin knows how important and how good of choice this is that she's about to make and so he's going to throw everything he can at her to stop her.  It made a lot of sense to her and now she's leaning more on the lord for help instead people around her.  It's funny because I was talking to Elder Thomas the other day and I asked about how Kelly was doing.  That's the girl we found a long time ago in Chesterfield that got baptised.  He said that her family is still giving her a hard time but that it has been a testimony builder for her to.  She said that none of her friends or family cared much about religion or if she changed to any other religion but once it was about Mormons there was a huge uproar. So... ya the church is true : ) ha.

     So we also taught Bill and Lori again.  Bill's hilarious he says the funniest things, he told us in the last lesson that he will believe anything we tell him ha.  But he's doin pretty good the key though is going to be his wife Lori.  She's a more uninterested and set in her faith (she's lutherin)  So she's going to be a harder nut to crack ha.  But once she comes around they both be great members.  Bill is pretty much a dry Mormon... ha he just hasn't got in the water to be baptised.   They both came to church this week and really liked it.  It was interesting Bill took the sacrament, and Lori kind of adamantly refused ha.

   Time is flying by way to fast!  I can't believe this month is almost over already!  It's crazy to think I've been out 6 months going on 7 soon!  I'm really grateful to be out here on my mission.  I was thinking about the day that I opened my mission call and how I knew that St.Louis is were I needed to go.  I feel it now way more than I did than.  I've already learned so much and I'm continuing to learn more every day and continually figuring out I have so much more to learn ha.  I've been really blessed with great areas and companions to work with.  I'm so grateful I had a part in helping Kelly I've heard several missionaries and members say that she is the most solid convert they have ever seen!  Then Cheryl and Dan Hohnbaum have been just as solid!  They still come every single week, Daniel passes the sacrament every week and they show no signs of slowing down!   I just found from Elder Thomas that Tim a guy that Elder Thomas and I started teaching is getting baptized next month on the 23rd!  and that he has changed so much!  D&C 18:15-16  is the scripture of the day Bri : ).  My joy has definitely been very great and I'm very greatful for the opportunity I've had to serve here and can't wait for what the Lord has in store for us!

Elder Barta

p.s. Heres a baseball I broke playing softball last monday : ) it was awesome!

and Captain Jack Spearow!  we saw him at Applebees and he sounded and acted and looked just like him it was crazy!!