Miracles, miracles, miracles.

I have to tell you about our new investigator. We'll call him Ted for privacy reasons. Ted is the guy we met out walking with his family, the same guy who's door we knocked on a week after meeting him on our sick day. Ted is G O L D E N. Really and truly. He's on an epic search for truth and is thereby willing to listen to us and "experiment upon the word." We had a lesson with him this week, and he kept telling us about funny "coincidences" in his life. The funniest of which was when he told us that he read about being stiffnecked in the Book of Mormon and then woke up sick a few days later with a stiff neck. He joked about being concerned that he was evil!

 He also told us that during our first lesson with him he was so overwhelmed because he kept feeling like he'd done all of this before. Like he'd talked about all of these things with us before. The whole time we talked with him, he had the phrase "it is written" running on a loop. 

It get's better. Well, funnier. When he was confirming our teaching appointment (which never happens, we're always the ones to confirm) he sent the emojis🚴‍♀️🌈🚴‍♀️. When we asked him what that meant he said it was because he was pretty sure that we didn't really bike on the road, that we actually come down from the clouds and bike on rainbows. I don't think Ted knows what he looks like (buff with tattoos) because he sends random emojis and writes poetry and crys a lot. 

 The rest of the week was pretty run of the mill. We knocked a lot of doors, talked to a lot of strangers, sang some silly sings, ate too much sugar, had a few mental breakdowns, and survived a fast Sunday. Yep, pretty average. Except..... WE HAD TWO MIRACLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 On Thursday we got a call from a member saying that they had someone for us to teach! That's the first time that's ever happened to me. The new person is a 17-year-old girl whose family got baptized a year ago. She says she is now ready to take the lessons herself. She wants to bring God more into her life. We start teaching her on Tuesday.

 Our next miracle was delivered to us on Sunday. We walked into the church and were quickly pulled aside by our ward mission leader who excitedly told us that we have a baptism coming up. It turns out, one of our member families has a cousin who has been taking the lessons in Flagstaff, is moving out to Utah on Wednesday, and wants to be baptized into our ward on March 31st. It's a bit of a complicated process to jump through to make this happen. But her heart is in the right place as she wants to be baptized here so that some certain family members in need of Jesus can witness it.

 My companion and I have noticed that we've been struggling to understand the Spirit recently. There's this age-old war that we all battle in about whether or not it's us or the spirit that's thinking that or feeling this. The generic answer is "if it's a good thing just go for it." Which is helpful and all, but what do you do when there's a thousand and one good things to be done in a day? How do we tell if the spirit is saying right or left, this person or that person, this scripture or that scripture? I know that God won't command us in everything all the time, but I do expect that He will from time to time guide our every footstep. We haven't felt that recently. There could be a thousand and one reasons as to why that is. God is testing us to see if we'll just keep forging forward, He wants us to learn to trust our own judgment, or He is, and we just haven't seen it yet are some of the options. I was pondering on what my part is in all of this craziness when the answer came from a primary child. I was sitting, pondering, and listening to fast and testimony meeting when a small boy walked up to the microphone and said: "I know that if we pray more we'll feel the spirit more." That's it!! My personal prayers have been lacking recently. Especially my night prayers because I basically say amen and then leap under the covers.

 So, we are seeing big miracles.  I have recommitted to have more personal prayers, and life is moving forward.

Also, it's my 20th birthday on Wednesday!! I have big plans to make my zone sing happy birthday to me at least three times. Maybe I'll set a goal to get 20 different people to sing happy birthday to me.... Wish me luck!

 Love, Sister Barlow