Go For Crazy!

Temple Trip!!!

There's a lot that goes on in my missionary mind every day, and it seems like the act of emailing stirs everything up and makes my head hurt. I used to judge wimpy emails from missionaries, but now I get it. It's hard to put into words all that goes on, all that is seen, felt and realized. But some effort ought to be spent to document and share the important things. So, first the important things.

When we went on exchanges last week or the week before (what is time? I no longer know) I learned an important lesson from Sister Baggaley. The lesson is (you've probably guessed it if you read the title of this email), go for crazy. Just go for it. Quick story: Sister Baggaley and I were out tracting when we saw a lady getting something from her car. We naturally began to head over to talk to her, but before we even began to cross the street, she was already mostly back inside her house. I threw Sister Baggaley a look that said "what do we do" and she, without hesitation mind you, threw up a hand and gave her friendliest yell of hello. Because of Sister Baggaley's willingness to be a bit brazen, we talked to the woman, got to know her a bit, and offered her a copy of the Book of Mormon. The whole day was like that with us only being able to talk to people because Sister Baggaley was willing to be a little crazy and joyfully take the opportunities God had presented us with that day.

So here's the application: We have set a goal as a zone to reach 18 baptisms this month. That might sound a bit awful, but I promise it's about more than just a number. We are not dealing with the extreme emotional stress of missionary work for the sole purpose of tally marks. The purpose of a specific number is to give us something to work towards, to pray about. It's to provide us with the inspiration to keep going when things get hard; it's to stretch us, test our faith, help us rely on God, and so on and so forth. We labor for the salvation of the souls in our area. We know the peace and joy this gospel brings to the human heart, and we are in the process of taking it to everyone willing, and this transfer, to 18 of God's beloved children. 18 is the number we prayed about and decided upon, and it's what we continue to pray about and work towards. We have a detailed game plan that includes but is not limited to:

· fasting as a zone
· praying for each investigator each companionship has
· inviting everybody to be baptized
· having 10 quality gospel discussions each day
· evaluating each night as companionships
· and basically working so hard we die (that's an inside joke)

Sister Donaldson and I support and work towards the goal of 18 baptisms for the month of July for our zone. We also have a companionship goal for a miracle baptism on the 26th. We had somebody promising for the 26th, but she has since fallen off (for good reasons and she will be baptized on August 2nd). Now we are back to the drawing board, and we have realized that if it is anyone remotely new we have to find them this week. We both still feel good about the 26th being the miracle baptism date and to be honest we both felt that the investigator we had on track for the 26th was not the one God had prepared. With these things in mind (mostly in recognition of a miracle needed) we as a companionship have also decided to sacrifice something each week. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven after all. Last week we sacrificed our knees (as in every prayer was said on our knees, including in the car. Missionary work is bizarre sometimes.)

And this week we are sacrificing both music and sleep (we're getting up an hour early for more study time). We have big goals and bigger dreams for the area we are in, and here's where such goals and dreams connect with going for crazy. I've realized that after we have prayerfully set goals, we have two options. The first option is to immediately give up, deem it impossible, decide we are not capable, name the task insurmountable, and forget about it. Move on, do other things, try other things. Whatever. Or, we can run with it. We can go for crazy and take it and run with it. We can take it onward and upward and forward. We can heave, push, toil, labor, plead, pray, and try. We can accomplish incredible things, and maybe sometimes fail. But if we do fail, we fail with something akin to glory because we will have given it our all, even when we didn't want to give it anything. If failure is our future then fail we will, it'll be better than twiddling our thumbs in boredom and apprehension anyways. And if we do fail, we will still have gotten further than if we hadn't really tried anything at all. Also, failure isn't all that bad. There's a quote from some wise person that goes "because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, mortality is a safe place to fail." In the scriptures, we read that when Jesus Christ performed the Atonement, He descended below us all. I have realized that because He descended below us all, he is in the perfect position to catch us when we fall. And from there, He can help us fly. So today and every day, go for crazy. Trust in God, trust in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, fear no failure and accomplish the supposedly impossible.

Go for crazy folks, go for crazy. I certainly will be!

I just realized that my email contains nothing remotely funny this week and I don't like that so... I met somebody this week who is basically a properly socialized Hagrid, and I'm dying of happiness. Also, we were at WinCo today, and a gentleman walked by and said: "Hi sisters, I'm pretty sure you need to buy this for one of your investigators" and plopped a bag of dog treats in our cart with a $20 bill on top. Ha. Members are generous and sneaky. We certainly appreciate it. Ok bye.

Love,

Sister Barlow