ARLINGTON!

I can't believe you'll be here tomorrow! Just know...that I will LITERALLY be like ten minutes away in Hurst tomorrow for Zone Conference. Don't try to track me down. But weird.

So I am training in a new area! Talk about longest days of my life. Our first day I had no phone, no GPS, no food, a brand new companion straight from the MTC, no knowledge of the people or area, and appointments to go to. Talk about stressful. Just think about it...we were very lost. This whole week we've been lost! But it's getting better. Sister Meiners is awesome! She's almost exactly my age and went to BYU as well. She has a very rock solid testimony and is very teachable. I loved my trainer but I just felt like we got nothing done...but I am now the trainer. Mwuahahah! We eat, sleep, and breathe missionary work. There's no time to even think about anything else. I put Sister Meiners right to work. She is very teachable. but I love to work. We've been a good companionship. We are exactly obedient and teach well together. We are constantly trying to improve our knowledge and our skills as missionaries. I am determined to be a good missionary and turn this area around because this ward is struggling. STRUGGLING. Of course we will always be looking for new investigators and baptisms, but we will be focusing a lot on members and less actives. Most of the members ARE less actives. A lot of the less actives are recent converts. Sigh. There's a lot of work to do and that's what I do best. There may not be very many baptisms, but hopefully a lot of reactivation...then maybe the baptisms will follow.  This week has by far been the hardest on the mission, but I know God is with me. As long as I am following Him, it will all be okay. Which reminds me! There was a tornado our first day! Don't even worry Mom but maybe you should be because we thought the siren was a vacuum. A VACUUM! Yeah, we'd be toast. Then our District Leader called and said that there was a tornado warning. So what did we do? We went to bed and slept through the whole thing! We had no idea it was so bad until the morning! The tornado didn't touch the ground here...It did pull a lot of trees down. It hit it Granbury which is less than an hour away. People lost their lives and it sounds like it was a bad tornado. But all the missionaries down there weren't hurt.

So about Arlington. Just wow. I think it's funny how I want to go to the country so bad and I go to Flower Mound and then Arlington. But this city is so diverse. There's people in our ward who have grills! How cool is dat? There's people with Texan accents, people with black people talk, black people, hispanics, white, hicks...It's just cray cray. But ya got to love it! :) I hope for this place!

I love ya'll and I'm so excited for my sister! This church is so true!

Love,

Sister Barnes JR