Nicaragua !Semana Dos!

Hey Hey Familia! Hows it going in good ol Utah? Let me tell you a few things about Nicaragua. Turns out there is a sun here. The rain finally stopped!! Wohoo!! Because of this beautiful fact this week was much better. We are having trouble finding people to teach though! But a cool thing happened, our whole zone came and contacted in our area to help us find families. It was cool. we got like 8 new appointments. But then when we actually found these peoples houses (which oh my gosh is so hard here-they dont have addresses. They have directions. what is your address? Here is my address: Go to energy plant and then 3 cuadrants south and then 20 metres east where the avocado tree is. then its the pink house. Do you know how many avocado trees there are here? Another address, i kid you not, is: 4 cuads al oeste from where the mormon fell... I guess an Elder like fell off the sidewalk and slipped in the mud and totally faceplanted. and everyone remembers. hahaha) anyways (wow i get super sidetracked) once we find the people who said they were interested, they just lie to our faces. We had a good referencia from some elders- they said they were way interested. And so we hiked down into this little field with shacks and as we were walking down, we saw a guy see us and go into his house. then we found out that that was the house we were looking for, and went to it and his "esposa" came to door and we were like hey! other missionaries talked to you the other day right? and she was like yeah-what do you want? and we were like well, we´d like to teach you and your husband mas sobre la iglesia de Jesucristo. And she was like. oh, he is not here. and we go to another church. when the reference said that they didnt go to anychurch. It is really hard to teach here, because the people just tell you what you want to here....well some do... this lady was extremely honest...and rude. It sounds really bad, but the people here are liars. They will lie right to your face like it is absolutely nothing. Every sunday morning we wake up at 5:30 to gather the Mormon Battalion. Which is where we go and gather all of our recent converts and investigators who have committed to come to church. So around 7 we go and start knocking doors and recommit people to come to church. This week we went to all of our recent converts- there are 10- and asked them- hey, you are coming to church today right? it starts at nine (they know when it starts! recent converts only means that they have been a member under a year) and they say oh of course- i promise you, I swear ill be there. and then how many actually showed up? ONE! one and it was because we literally walked him there. His name is Herson. We went to his house to find him and his wife Juana, but they werent there. So we started walking to church, and then we found him throwing up on the side of the road--Totally drunk. Alot of our recent converts are having trouble with alcohol lately. I dont know whats the deal- but oh! it is so sad! anyways, we found him drunk and we´re like: Herson! What are you doing?? Dont you remember that you just made covenants with God? and he simply replied-Satan made me do it. Family and friends, can i please remind you that Satan cannot make you do anything? We all have our agency. We are all incharge of our actions. You can do or say or Be anything you want to be, because you have your agency. You are incharge. Again, it reminds me of that way tight poem from William Ernest Hemley---I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.--never forget you have the power! anyways, ill stop preaching to you guys now... Lets get trunky. The other day something cool happened, you guys may not think its cool, but i totally did. The other day I was doing my makeup in the bathroom, and I had to do a double take in the mirror, because i looked just like mom. Remember how she always made that face when she was putting on makeup? Like she would suck her cheeks in and stick out her lips? I totally did without thinking about it. How cool is that right? Pretty cool. That reminds me of a song from the broadway Lion king. I am sure you all remember it, I would bust that song like nobodies business. It is in the part where Simba is talking to Rafiki and Rafiki tells him to look into the water. He tells him he will see his father. He asks simba, what do you see? and Simba, severely disapointed answers-its just my reflection. And Rafiki tells him- He lives in you.--The song is called He lives in you. Here are some words- "He lives in you, He lives in me. He watches over everything we see. Into the water, Into the truth, In your reflection He lives in you.--I always think of this song when I miss mom. Her blood runs in my veins. I am her daughter. She taught me everything I know. She made me who I am. She will always live on in me. I will always be the daughter of Jenny Lynn Barrett. When i think of this, I remember my divine nature. Each of us are children of a divine Creator, Our Father in Heaven. That is our divine nature. He made us. God is our father. Our purpose in this life is to become like him. Can you imagine how different the world would be if when everyone looked in a mirror they saw their own divine nature? If we each remembered where we came from, and our purpose in life? We are literally his Children. I know i havent been out here very long, but I have learned so so much about our Heavenly Father. Especially how to talk to him. I have learned to talk to Him like the father He is. If any of you are having a hard time, or if you feel alone...just remember-He is always there. Just waiting.He is a God of patience and long-suffering. He will always be there for you. No matter how long your pride takes you to realize it. Pray to him. Learn to trust Him. There in you will find peace.wouldnt it be cool if i could talk like this in spanish?! I hate that i cant express myself! I am waking up every day at 6 just to get in a half hour more of spanish everyday. just fyi. Anyways, I sure love you guys! I hope you have a great week!!

Nicaragua!! Week 1

IM ALIVE!!! dont you worry. Let me tell you about my first adventures in Nicaragua.It all started last monday when i flew in. It was hard to leave the ccm because i loved the people so so much! anyways we got in at like 9 pm and then went to some dinner with presidente arredondo y su esposo. They are so stinkin cool! Just totally chill-joking around with the missionaries and within their family, i really like them. Anyways we got some food and then went to the house. Okay. The houses here are all in gates and then you go in, and it is just an empty room. No one has furniture and it is rare to even have a tv... or a floor for that matter. Anyways this house did have a floor and two other sisters live there. they werent very nice. They drug out two bare matresses (one for me, one for hna escudero who i traveled with) and slapped them down on the floor and said goodnight. Rudies. Anyways we went to bed and all was well. I need to tell you-Hna Escudero does not speak a lick of english. Okay so i wake up the next morning with hna escudero yelling at me while swatting at my bed (remember that cool thing how i cannot see without my glasses or contacts?? this was one of those precious moments) anyways she is yelling "mata lo! mata lo!!" which is to say "kill it! kill it!!" she is yelling this while swatting something at my bed. My first morning in Nicaragua- woke up with a scorpion in my bed. Nothing happened, and we did kill it, but Holy cow right?! kinda sets the tone for my mission. :) funny though right? Then we went contacting and holy guacamole. the people here are so so so so sos os poor. I was with Hna Menendez contacting in Managua and she was like come on we have an appointment! so we went and turned on this little dirt road (it shouldnt count as a road) and then we went into what looked like a barn yard to me. Like there was a huge bull, and chickens and just dirt everywhere and a few little barnlike huts and then to my suprise hermana menendez yells "Buenas!" infront of one of these little huts and a little kid comes and opens the door and i was thinking, oh...he is homeless and all alone. Nope His whole family lived in this little hut.just dirt floors and two mattresses crammed in this little tiny barn. Our appointment was with his mom who had a brand new baby. I totally cried walking away from the house because even though we were in this little hut in the dirt, we sang "I am a child of God" and the spirit was strong. We taught about the plan of salvation and how the gospel could Bless her life. I just got a slap in the face. We are so so so blessed. Anways, Then we had the change meeting and i met my Mama-Hermana Ruiz. She is so tuanis! I really like her. She is from El Salvador, and she doesnt speak any english, and she doesnt want to learn any. She is way nice though, and is always ready to laugh. She takes great care of me. She makes my breakfast and always walks infront of me to make sure it is safe before i go.(Im sending a bunch of pictures. She is in one with me and 2 other people. She is on the far right. some others are of my street here in Nicaragua, my house here, the food in the CCM guatemala, I have now forgotten what else-but i hope you like them!) We live in a little house behind the house of the branch president. I think im sending a little picture of his house too. He and his wife have two kinders and they own a little store. His wife feeds us lunch and dinner everyday and does our laundry. Sweet right? Want to know something else sweet? I am not allowed to eat ham! Perfect mission right? But let me tell you about the food. Everymorning we wake up and eat whatever we have. Today we had some bread and a gluglu. Sounds apetizing right? its just one of those drinks in a bag. Then for lunch we had guyopinto (i dont know how to spell that) and some sort of bologne type meat in a tomatoey sauce. It was actually pretty good. Then for dinner well have guyopinto again and bread and someother kind of meat. I love guyopinto though. Rico. Oh! let me tell you about my first time tracting in Nicaragua with Hermana Ruiz. First all My area is Esteli. It is in North Nica. It is like cold here! especially with the rain and wind from the hurricane in mexico or guatemala or whereever. There is SO much water. Next week ill send you a picture of the huge river where a street used to be. anyways, esteli is also up in the mountains. So our tracting is all in mud and like jungle. So she takes me up and down these dirt roads and then we are just walking through the brush and then we come to a river with like 2 pipes over it. It is raining and slick and then she just jumps up on these pipes and walks across gracefully. Hello! Remember your daughter? I have absolutely no balance on a dry day in the middle of a sidewalk. but somehow we got across and went and met our recent converts. Hermana Ruiz has no fear. It is pretty sweet. Sorry, i feel like I am totally babbling. Here is the address of the mission home. You can send any and all things there: (Tell chelsey before she has a fit)

Hermana Barrett

Nicaragua Managua North Mission

Edificio Discover 2D,Frente a Club TerrazaA.P.

360'0Managua, ManaguaNicaraguaC.A.

Lets see what else can i tellyall. The people here dont see the point of getting married. Everyone just lives together and has kids and its no big deal. They even call the other person their spouse. Something that is hard for me is that everyone is super blunt. When you are teaching them you just have to tell it like it is. Example. Hna Ruiz was teaching this couple and she straightup was just like-You are fornicating. You need to get married or you wont recieve the blessings of the gospel. And they werent really feeling the whole marraige thing-and so we are looking for new investigators! Contacting is so crazy here. You go up to the people and say "hey, do you go to church? no? well I am a missionary and i am here to invite you to church." Then if they say yes you say " well my other job as a missionary is to help people prepare themselves to be baptized. Will you prepare yourself to be baptized on this day?" You set a baptism date the first time you speak to them. If they dont agree to be baptized then you move on. Sounds bad right? There are just so many people here to work with that if they are not serious about being baptized then you can spend your time better if you know they are serious about it. I am not very good at being that super blunt so it is still hard for me. Along with the whole super blunt thing-they are not shy about problems they are having. One of our other investigators does not get the point of fidelity in marraige. Last night he told us that he has been with 8 other women. ¿¡OCHO?! ENSERIO? He has a baptismal date......so we have alot of work to do. Sorry, i feel like I am being really blunt with you guys. And Ive only been here a week! Some other cool Nica things- they dont say their S. like in counting instead of uno dos tres. it is uno do tre. como eta? adio. it is way confusing. another thing is that they point with their lips. It is the coolest thing ever and i am getting pretty good at it. Like just while their talking if they are talking about a person or something they will gesture towards them with their lips. it is the funniest thing to see. another thing is that when they dont understand you they scrunch up their noses. I dont like this as much because i get it alot. Funny thing- yesterday during two of our lessons the investigator asked Ruiz if i could understand anything and if i knew any spanish. Hahahah then Ruiz was like "yeah, she can understand everything." and then they would look at me and id just nod and say-yup, its true.then they would start talking to me really fast and then i cant understand anything, so i just look stupid. I can understand alot more than i can speak. its frustrating though! Also, no one can say my name. They try and it comes out like a really deep dark word like in the very back of your throat. and then they just give up and call me barrrt. it sounds way funny. I like it.Something im not a fan of in Nicaragua--some of these people have literally never seen a gringa before. so they just gawk at me and the guys are always whisteling and catcalling me. It was cool for like the first 5 minutes. Dont worry though, Hermana Ruiz stares them down (she has got a wicked sweet glare) and then they settle down. Like i said, She takes great care of me.¡¡Brian Dransfield!!---How the heck are ya?? I love getting your emails. I can tell you are an awesome missionary. Thanks for your example to me of how to work with the spirit. I so appreciate it! How much time do you have left? I bet you are slmost done, and I cannot believe it. Time is flying. It will be awesome when we can all hang out and talk about our missions.anways, i think that about covers it. Overall-i like it. I am just so so ready for the rain to end. It is draining to be wet all the time. But seriously, I love Nicaragua. Cant wait for this next week to begin. I love you all, and i am praying for you! I hope all is well in Good ol Utah. Smile!! And dont worry! Love- Hermana Barrett

Guatamala- Week 5

Holy cow time is flyin!!! I cannot believe I am leaving for the field Monday!!! ahhh! Not gonna lie, im a little nervous!! But i loved loved loved what L Tom Perry said in conference. He quoted 1 John 4:18 which says: "There is no fear in love, for love casteth out fear" I love this so much! Because I dont know how, but all of the sudden I just love everyone. Everyone on the street is a brother, a sister, EVERYONE is a beloved daughter of Heavenly Father. I have been really nervous to go because, lets face it, spanish is hard. My world got rocked this last week with something called subjunctive, and then this week i learned adjective clause subjunctive and noun clause subjunctive and past subjunctive. Disgusting right? But I know that if i love these people as much as i possibly can, The way their Father loves them, then I have nothing to be afraid of. Somehow (If I am obedient) the spirit will touch them. OH! Cool story about this: This last monday we got to go tracting for the second time. Remember how last time i totally came home and totally cried because it was so hard and i couldnt understand anyone and they couldnt understand me? No? Oh, i probably didnt tell you that.... ANYWAYS I was totally dreading going this time because Last time i had my native companion. This time it was just me and sister blanco (hermana Holladay) (I think she may literally be half albino). Plus she is muy timido and doesnt talk to like anyone. I was feelin some pressure. Anyways luckily we had a spiritual buff up the day before with General conference and so i was filled with faith and we went and we talked to everyone and one hombre even said to me (en spanish) "Your spanish is very good!" THEN he turned to Hna Holladay and said (I laughed so hard later) You need to work a little harder. HAHAH she is so much better than me at spanish. It was way funny. She took it in jest, dont worry. Anyways, I know that i was only blessed with the gift of tongues in that instnace because i am being obedient. Weve heard it time and time again "If you follow my commandments you will prosper in the land" So it must be important eh? Pienso si. Oh, dad, youll be happy about this-after tracting monday they let me go to a Missionary nursing conference where all of the mission presidents wifes and all of the nurses for every mission get to go. How cool is that right? My mission presidents wife totally spoiled me. Her name is Hermana Steimle. She took me to lunch at this nice place and then to a bakery for the best cookies of my life. it was awesome!

Oh, another cool thing, today i got to go through the temple in spanish for the first time! I was so suprised how much i understood! Probably because the spirit was running rampant! But guess what! This is my last time going to the temple for the next 16 months! How?! Im not sure. Every week for months and then cold turkey? I think i will come to appreciate the temple much more. i would go into more details about that, but i have 2 minutes and need to get to business. I love you all, thank you so much for the support and emails! The church is true. :) -Hermana Barrett

Guatamala- Week 4

HOLA HOLA familia y amigos! Como estan este semana? I am doing really good this week. I got a new native companiera and her name is hermana Bobadilla. Sweet right? Hermana Holladay also got a native companion named hermana Uribe. I tell you what I think i found the latina version of myself. Hermana Uribe is SO COOL!!! she is a longboarder and she has a little sister that she just adores too and i dont know what it is about her, but we were just instant friends. Everynight we sit out in the hall and discuss our days and the other day i was in a little tiff with hermana holladay (we are good now, she was just being a little annoying...i probably was too) and she wrote me a note and it was like the sweetest thing ive ever read! she gave me the coolest scripture, but i left it in my room, so ill tell you next week.
I dont know what button i just hit, but i didnt mean to send that. Anyways, I am still loving Guatemala. Next week is my last week here! can you believe it? I sure cant. I am a little TERRIFIED to go into the actual field. Spanish is hard. I was just taught something that rocked my world-it is called subjunctive. I would tell you why it is so hard, but i dont even know how to explain it! My teacher was like....I dont want to scare you guys, but spanish is 85% subjunctive. Awesome. I have alot of work to do. I will tell you whats been on my mind lately. My second week here i heard another devotional talk from Elder Holland. In it he spoke of the time immedietly following the Saviors death. He told us about Peter, and what he did. I had never understood this story before. Peter went back to fishing, becuase thats all he had ever known. So they went fishing, and they were up all night fishing, and they didnt catch anything and then in the morning they saw a man on the shore and he said put your nets on the other side of the boat. so they did and they couldnt pull up the fish, because there were so many. Then Peter immedietly jumped off the boat because he knew it was the Savior. My favorite part of this story is the conversation on the shore between the Savior and Peter. Elder Holland said it like this. Jesus: Peter, do you love me more than you love fishing? more than boats? more than all you have? Peter:Yes i do love you more than these. Jesus: Peter, do you love me more than you love all you have? Peter:Yes, i do. I said i do. Jesus: (May i know say for the 3rd time-Peter was very sensitive about 3s at this time) Do you love me more than everything? Peter: Yes. I do. I love you. More than anything. (This is the moment when Peter became the great apostle) Jesus: Then feed my sheep. Right here elder holland said something i will never forget. He got firey and said that the Savior implied: "When i said leave your nets, I meant forever." Then Elder Holland said- Elders and sisters, never come home from your missions. "Called to serve, called to serve- I have heard that song so many times-but it means nothing if it is just for 2 years. Let your mission change you. Let it change your life. Love the Lord more than anything. More than Sin, more than any heartache. Feed His sheep." I love that SO much. I hope you guys can feel the power in his words. I sure can. I know that that is true. If we put all of our trust in the Lord, and do what he asks of us, He will not let us down. You can always rely on the Lord. I have been so extremely blessed. I just wanted to Say thank you for all of the love and support i feel from home. There are so many missionaries here who dont have anyone back home. My companion, Hna Bobadilla, has been a convert for 1.5 years and she is the only member. She is 25 and man, she has a strong testimony. It is hard to be out here alone, but She knows its true. It gives me great joy to be able to tell you all, that I know it is true as well. I feel so extremely blessed to be a missionary for the Lord. I know I am nothing. I have so so much to work on and so much to do. But i love the quote from President Hinckley- "You are not the best. But you are the best we have. You are the best the Lord has." The Lord is my strength. How lucky am I right? Wow! This is my churchiest email by far! But i just want you to know-I know its true. I know that Christ lives. I know he truly died for us. and I also know that he was ressurected and through his merits we can be an eternal family. What comfort this sweet sentance gives: I KNOW that my redeemer lives. Welp! Times up! I sure love you all though! Does it bug yall that i just email? some of my latina sisters are makingme feel bad for not being a better writer. sorry. Remember you are loved from Guatemala! Smile! if your sad-i love john 16:33 Be of good cheer! Love-Your Hermana Barrettolest scripture, but i left it in my room, so ill tell you next week.