THE LORD WORKS IN MIRACLES .......

WEEK # 48
Oh my gosh I miss girls camp soooo much!!! I'm super jealous that you all were there at the same time. That never happens! I can't believe Tay that you're done with camp!  Where is the time going? And pretty soon Court will be done too! I can't believe that! Good work on the ACT Taylor! Now we can live in Utah together...how weird will that be!  It made me tear up a little hearing that you talked about me in you YCL moment. That makes me feel really special. I'm glad that you think I'm a good example...even though I am a little crazy!  I hope that girls camp was awesome for all of you.

As for me, I'm doing great!  The first week of a new transfer is always a little weird getting used to people and the new district. Hermana Tineo is great though! She's so ready to do the work! She is always happy and is willing to do anything I throw out there, which is awesome because sometimes I have crazy ideas and she just goes with it. It's great to be with someone who is so ready to do the work. There are already miracles that are happening.

As far as investigators go, I guess it's time for an update. Obed who had a baptism date, kind of fell off the face of the earth. He won't answer or respond to us. He lives super far too so we can't just pass by casually. The Elders are going to try to see if he will meet with them. We have had miracles happen though. This week a woman in our ward introduced us to two of her friends. One of them is named Karen and she is super interested. The only problem is she is out of town every Sunday so we have to work around that. Also we finally have been able to meet with Maria Jose. Maria Jose is the woman that has a handicapped daughter. I can't remember if I have talked about them before. Anyway, she is so awesome. We tried for a long time to get in contact with her but she was so busy. We have seen her three times this week and she came to a baptism and loved the simplicity of it. Her daughter is also having surgery this week, so the Bishop and the missionaries gave her a blessing. She is so prepared for this gospel. She finally has hope again for her children and for her future. Keep her in your prayers.

So this week has killed me mentally...do you want to know why?  It is because I haven't heard English in 5 days now! I had been praying for a companion that didn't speak English, and that's exactly what I got. Hermana Tineo doesn't speak any English so everything is in Spanish. My mind is sooooo tired, but it's awesome!! Speaking in English is sometimes hard because the words come to me in Spanish first. My Spanish is going to fly this transfer!! It's awesome, but also super draining. She is so patient with me though. Sometimes its hard to explain things in Spanish, but I surprise myself with how easily it flows. I am shocked at how much I have grown. its incredible what the Lord can do with a 22 year old sassy girl haha. 

I am honored that the Lord has put so much trust in me. I know that we are going to see great miracles because Hermana Tineo is so prepared. Fresh face and fresh spirit is a great thing to have. It has given me a breath of fresh air. Never doubt that the Lord has great things in store for all of you! I am sooo grateful to have the family I do. Every day I am more and more grateful for that. Keep being a light to the world. LOVE YOU ALL!!

Con amor

Hermana Barker

Ps I just found out that Manuel my recent convert from Martorell died from heart complications. What an amazing blessing it was to be a part of his conversion just shortly before he left this world. The Lord put him in our hands at the perfect moment. If nothing else happens on my mission, I will be okay knowing that Manuel was able to accept eternal life before he departed. The Lord works in miracles. I have no doubt about that.

I PROMISE I'M ALIVE ......

WEEK #47

(A little insight as to why this weeks blog post is so late.  Rachel usually sends her emails on Monday mornings, except when it is a transfer Monday and then she emails on Tuesday. We knew this was a transfer week because Rachel told us in her email last week.  Ron, myself, Taylor and Courtney were all up at our churches youth camp, where we had very little cell reception.  It was a little comical to see Ron and me searching for a spot at camp where we got cell reception.  We were in the Sierras.  We kept checking our emails on Tuesday but nothing came.  For the most part we stayed calm.  We knew there was a good reason she didn't send her email Tuesday.  I will say we were very happy and a little relieved when she emailed us on Wednesday.  Hence the subject line in her email "I promise I'm alive!)

HI! Sorry it's so late in the week. Transfers were crazy yesterday and I had no time to email. First of all that picture of all of you at the teaparty is soooo cute and I'm super jealous that I couldn't dress up and go! I want to do another one when I get home okay?  You all look super hot! I love that Carolina commented on it. That's so awesome!! How cool is it  that you have a Spain friend now mom??  By the way, she's happy about Chile winning because that's where shes from.  Just so you understood correctly! (When Chile beat Spain, Carolina posted on Facebook and from what I could understand in my elementary Spanish, she was excited that Chile won.  I wasn't sure if I was correct in my understanding, since she lives in Spain.  Rachel cleared it up for me and now it makes perfect sense.)

I hope you are all having a great time at girls camp! I really wish I could be there! Next year hopefully though. I'm sorry I couldn't write you (Taylor and Courtney). There has just been a lot going on. But just know that I'm singing girls camp songs in my head every day before I eat so I can feel like I'm there with you all :)

Well are you ready for all the updates!? I know you're waiting for transfer information but I'm going to make you wait a little longer. I have to go through the week first of course! 

So the weather has been super hot and humid here lately (which is awful let me tell you). But the other day we were in a cita and it was all sunny and beautiful. We took the bus home and there were clouds rolling in. The minute we stepped off the bus, there was the biggest storm I have ever seen!!!!!! It was pouring rain and we couldnt even walk or I would have blown away! The elders came running over with jackets and umbrellas for us so we could get home. They were soaked too. They came to our rescue though because they only live 2 minutes from the station and we live about 15. It was super nice. The umbrellas broke on our way home, but we made it safely. SOAKED, but safe haha. It was quite the change in weather.

Okay the truth is I dont have much time to write today so I'll finally get to the good stuff. So they called on Saturday to tell us about transfers...all they told me was that I was going to be getting a mini missionary but they had no idea who or where she was coming from. So what is a mini missionary? It's a youth from a ward in the boundaries of our mission who wants to see what a mission is like before they serve. So there are I think 5 in the mission right now because we are getting a huge group of missionaries in August and our mission president didn't want to close areas. The only way to keep them open though was to bring people in for one transfer before the new sister missionaries get here. Do you know what that means?? I am most likely trainging next transfer, and I'm literally starting from scratch right now!  (Just some stats about Rachels mission.  Rachel got to Barcelona last September and in her group of new missionaries 24 were sister missionaries.  At the time her mission only had 12 sisters in the entire mission.  Since those 24 sisters, almost a year ago, they have only had 8 new sisters come to the Barcelona mission.  This August they are expecting another large group of sister missionaries like Rachels group.)

My companions name is hermana Tineo. She is from Peru but lives on Mallorca, the islands here. She doesn't speak any English so this is going to be awesome!! I am going to learn so much this way! She is here for 6 weeks and she literally is starting from scratch. She found out on Sunday night that she was coming to the mission! She hasn't been to the MTC or anything. I really am going to teach everything...I guess I got what I asked for when I said I wanted to train right?? haha I am super excited though. She is excited and so willing to do the work! It's going to be a great learning experience and a great transfer!

So yesterday I had to go to the train station in Barcelona (an hour and a half train ride north) to drop off my companion and then get another sister and go to the airport to pick up our companions. It was a little bit crazy but we finally found them, got back on the train to head home and now were safe and back in Tarragona!  (Now we can see why she didn't get a chance to email on Tuesday.  She spent the entire day traveling.)

Well I'm like out of time because I was supposed to do this yesterday...oops haha. But thank you for emails this week. If I didn't respond to people it was because I really only wrote to you! But give everyone my love at girls camp and sing loud for me! Thank you for sharing a little of Elder Higbees talk! He is goign to do great!  (Our friend Brett Higbee is going to Mexico City on his mission and gave his farewell talk in church this past Sunday.  I shared part of his talk with Rachel.  In his talk Brett shared remarks from a talk from Elder Bednar on being Steadfast and Immoveable.  It's a great talk if you would like to read it). 

Have an amazing week and try to see the hand of the Lord in all you do! It's amazing what the Lord can do for us if we have faith and the desire to know and to grow. 

Con amor,
Hermana Barker

FELIZ DIA DEL PADRE .........

WEEK #46
07/16/14

Nido del Aguilar

Happy fathers day to the best dad in the world!! I know it's late but I'm always torn between if late or way early is better...so I decided late haha. I hope dad that you had a great day and that you felt my love from all the way over here!!! I was definitely thinking about you yesterday!  (Rachel sends her emails every Monday morning, so Ron received his Fathers Day email a day late.  That was her dilemma).

Also today we have a weird schedule so we are going to email tomorrow. I will update you all about everything tomorrow. But I love you all!!! Thank you always for the emails.  You don't know how much they really mean to me. Without them, I coud never get through the week!!!

LOVE YOU!!

Hermana Barker

07/17/14

Dear Familia, I hope you had an amazing Fathers Day, and that Grandma Daisy had a great birthday! That's awesome that you got to spend some time with her. (Ron surprised his mom on her birthday by actually showing up at her house in Southen California with flowers).  

As you can see we had a great last preparation day of the transfer...can you believe the transfer is already over!? It went so fast!! I hit a year in one month...thats insane!

On our exploration we came across an abandoned house

The Elders are convinced that this is where the people of Tarragon hide dead bodies.

We didn't find any dead bodies, just bones....

Enough about me though...you all are awesome!! Mom that is awesome that youre helping the missionaries! I am so glad that you have had that opportunity to see a little bit of what I'm doing. I bet our lessons are a little different  but I am so glad you are getting to go out with them. I'm glad they are seeing some success in little ways. My only advice is to trust in the missionaries...they may do or ask some crazy questions to the people they are teaching that you may feel uncomfortable with, but just trust them...I am finally getting comfortable with some of the fuerte (strong, hard) questions that we ask. Trust!  They are teaching by the spirit.  (That was the best advice she could have given). 

I thought about you mom because today we were eating with a member who has a daughter on a mission and she was reading a letter that she got from her daughter. The whole time she was trying not to cry but she couldn't hold it in. She finally broke and I started to cry because it made me think of you on the other side reading my letters. It was a sweet moment for me.

That is awesome about Miranda wanting to serve. I hope every girl serves who is willing to sacrifice and who wants to have the most amazing but hard experiences. Really I will never regret serving a mission. It is the best decision I have ever made. Even though its hard, its worth every tear to see just one person enter into the army of the Lord. The change of Manuel (the kid who got baptized) was amazing. He knew after only three weeks that he wanted to be baptized.  He went from smoking a ton of cigarettes every day, not really knowing what to believe...to having a super strong testimony in the things of the gospel and wanting to move forward every day to have a future family forever. That is what makes the tears and the hard days of being a missionary worth it. We had a bbq for him after the baptism.

Also I have great news!!! Godson from Martorell got baptized!! Although I would have loved to have been at his baptism, I am so glad that he finally had the chance to be baptized. Of all the people I have ever met, I have never seen someone fight so hard for something they believe. After having known the church for 5 years, he finally was blessed with the opportunity to be baptized! It was amazing to see.

So one of the things that my distric leader put me in charge of this transfer was to liven up noche de barrio (neighborhood night -  The missionaries have these nights once a week to help build unity in our ward - church congregation). Nobody was coming to the noche de barrios that we were having. I told him I would try my best. We planned a big "Iron Rod"  activity and invited the world. On the day that we had the activity, I was worried that nobody was going to show up...we had about 40 people come and people even invited friends! The bishop was amazing and we felt like we had accomplished something big. Finally people are coming to the activites and we hope that it stays this way. I am going to try my best to get this ward to be close. There are so many peoople, the activities should be so fun! It was a success though!  (Click here to read the story of "The Iron Rod" or click here to read the scripture story in the Book of Mormon 

I also finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish!! Now I'm back to English once again. It's amazing to me how 10 months ago I couldn't understand even the simplest sentence in Spanish...now I'm reading a whole book and understanding it all! What the Lord can do for His missionaries is incredible!! 

Well although we didn't have our baptism of Obed like we had planned, we had a successful week. This is the last week of transfers so we are going to be eating well with the members :).  I hope all is well with everyone. I miss you all mucho but I'll see you in no time!  Kelli you are looking big, in a good way!! That's insane! But also sooo cute! Well stay safe and have an amazing week.

LOVE YOU ALLL MUCHISMO!!!

Hermana Barker  

New Photos from Tarragona ....

Exploring the Roman ruins of Tarragona

Bed Bugs.  GROSS!!!!!

WHAT AN AMAZING WEEK ....

WEEK #45

What an amazing week!!

First of all thank you for sharing the comments that people put up regarding my wards missionary video. Its really cool to see that people are seeing it outside of Spain! It was a really good idea of our Bishop. I'm glad you think I talk fast mom..because here people don't think that, but I am learning sooooo fast. I now have the confidence to ask what things mean without feeling stupid so I am learning so much more right now. It's amazing how far I have come in the last 6 months. I understand almost all of it and that is a miracle right there for me at least!!

So this area has been a little hard. We don't have a lot of appointments every week, but we are still being blessed. I think the Lord has seen that even though things are hindering me and the way I want to do missionary work, He still knows Im trying my best. We really are seeing miracles though and it's amazing.

First I'll start with the non spiritual things....on Thursday I was on splits with another missionary and the sister wanted to go running in the morning. The Elders wanted to go running too so we went with them. Let me remind you that I haven't run in about 10 months now...I DIED!!! the Elders measured the distance wrong and so instead of running the three miles they thought we were going to run (which is still a lot for me!) we ended up running about 7 miles! For the next two days I couldn't walk...no joke. My companion was laughing at me. 

Also we have fun little amigos in our piso right now....AKA BED BUGS!!!! We think the other sister brought them in. I am literally dying though. I have bites all over my arms (pictures to come). They itch like crazy. Right now we're in the process of decontaminating our piso. It looks like I have chicken pox. And it just grosses me out to be honest haha. Bed bugs??? That's the last thing I need to worry about right now! 

One last funny story. We went to contact old investigators and less actives the other day. We were with a member named Eduardo. We went into this super sketchy looking building and we were looking for a man named Jesus. A woman answered the door and I asked if Jesus lives here. With a confused look she slowly said yeah.... I asked if we could talk to him and she was like "um well can't anyone talk to Him if they want to?" At this point Eduardo caught on to the fact that she was thinking I was talking about Jesus Christ. He started laughing super hard and I realized what was going on. I turned bright red and said "Im sorry, no we're actually looking for a real man named Jesus."  She responded "Oh I thought it was one of your tricks to get me to listen to you." My companion still had no idea what was going on, but we all were laughing super hard. We just ended the conversation and slowly walked away. Eduardo was crying from laughing so hard and so was I. It was sooo funny. Maybe it was a "you had to be there" moment, so I'm sorry if its not as funny over email.

Now for the miracles. The first miracle is that...we have a baptism on Sunday!!! His name is Obed. He is 24 and he has been investigating the church for about 6 months now. He hasn't been baptized because lives super far away and hasn't been able to come to church because of work. This week though, he promised he would come. He took a train in to a closer city the night before so that he could make it to church yesterday. That is sacrifice and shows that he really wanted to come. He is incredible. We haven't been able to see him for 2 weeks, but he is still reading and praying every night and still has a strong testimony about the church and this gospel. He was so prepared and finally he can show that through his baptism.

Manuel is also getting baptized on Sunday. He is an investigator that contacted the Hermanas about 2 months ago. He lives in the elders area so they passed him off. The only problem was that the elders could never get ahold of him. One day we saw his name on a list of potential people and so we called not knowing who he was. The first lesson with him was AMAZING!!! He had already read in the Book of Mormon to 2 Nephi and wanted to be baptized. The sad part was that we had to pass him to the Elders. He had a baptism date for the 21st but he didn't want to wait that long so he moved his date for the Elders. Although he isn't really my investigator...I'm still going to count it. We have taught him just has much as the Elders and he's our friend too! It's going to be a great weekend for baptisms.

I am happy and loving life. The work of course is hard, but there are a lot of good things going on in Tarragona. We are finding a lot of people who have been lost and a lot of people are coming to church who haven't been in years. We have a lot of prepared people we are working with and I hope to help them make it to the waters of baptism. I really love this work. I love the look on people's faces when the spirit has touched them. There is nothing better than helping people find joy in this broken world. I hope you all are doing well. I miss you and love you all mucho!! As much as I love you though, I can wait for 8 months to see you! 

Con Amor.

Hermana Barker

THIS WEEK WAS A STRUGGLE .....

WEEK #44

Happy Anniversary to the best parents in the world!! I promise I actually thought about you this last week because I knew that it was your anniversary. I'm glad you got to go out and enjoy it...and not at a choir concert haha. 

Also I can't believe that Courtney is driving! Stop growing up! I'm missing everything. I'm not gonna lie. I'm going to be scared to get in a car with Court at first...and Tay still. So weird ahha. They are growing up so fast!! 

Well what to say about this week...It was a little bit of a struggle. We had to go to Barcelona two days this week for a conference and to redo my companions DNI. So we lost two whole days of work...with that being said, it was a struggle. We really didn't have much going on this week, but thats ok. We found more people and we set up a lot for this week. The problem right now is we are in the process of working through all the papers that have never been organized so we have spent a lot of time calling people and organizing a ton of papers. We had a lot of citas set up last week with people who were either contacted or who had lost contact with missionaries for some reason...and a lot of them fired or just didn't show up. That's ok though. We finally finished the paperwork so now the piso and the area is organized and ready to go. That was a relief.

I don't know if you remember, but one time I said that I think a lot of my work here is going to be working with menos activos...I still think that. We found a lot of menos activos that haven't come to church in 15 years. They said they were finally ready to come back to church. It really is an amazing feeling when we are sitting with someone who hasn't been to church in forever and they look at you and you can just feel their desire to find their faith again. It's truly amazing. It is one of the best feelings I have felt on my mission. We have talked a lot about the temple lately with menos activos and families who have never been. The light in their eyes when they look at temple is amazing. I never realized how much this church really does change and affect familes...now though I know. The kids in the church here are so much happier and have much more direction in their life. They know their purpose and their value. The other kids here are so lost and the familes are so broken. I don't know what I did to deserve the family I have, but I thank God every night that I was born into a strong family that loves and supports me.

Really other than that there wasn't much this week. Today we went biking on trails by the beach and it was beautiful!! We heard a lot of English which was a little weird. Seriously this area is so amazing. There are beautiful places here that I am so excited to show you all. It's like I'm living in paradise...in a skirt. haha. We definitely are starting to stick out with the skirts...everyone else is in like nothing so that doesn't help. 

Oh my barrio (ward) made a video to give to people who are interested in learning more. It's on youtube and I'm in it!  Search for Invitacion a conocernos or search for barrio tarragona.

Video link  (Rachel is towards the middle of the video.  It's fun to hear her speak Spanish.  I can't understand a word she says because she is speaking too fast).

Well I hope everyone is happy and the last part of school is going well. I hope next week I will have more for you. I will try to make something amazing happen okay? 

Con Amor,

Hermana Barker

ps my new favorite scripture: 

Hebrews 6:10-15 

10. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

11. And we desire that everyone of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

12. That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

13. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself,

14. Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.

15. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.