December 22- He Is The Gift

Family! Hello everyone! It's me Sister Barton! Wanna hear about Rincon? Okay I'll tell you because it's so fun! I pretty much feel like I have been sprinting for the past 6 days. As soon as we got the area we were ready to work. Sister Charles likes to do things one step at a time, one task at a time so she keeps reminding me to slow down but we are starting to get our feet on the ground a little bit. Being in a new area with a brand new companion is a lot of work but I LOVE TRAINING! During training we do role plays because that's what missionaries do. Mostly just because Sister Charles doesn't really know the lessons yet so we practice by teaching each other. Good things Sister Rhodes taught me to love role plays. At first the role plays were a huge struggle and it was a little frustrating. Then I had an idea! From then on during all role plays as soon as they got to stiff I would stand up and say, " Sister Charles, pretend I'm your boyfriend! You are teaching Ryan about the Plan of Salvation! Ready. Set. Go." Suddenly she was a pro teacher! It's weird how most of our companion studies I pretend to be Ryan from Kentucky but it works! :) In this area we cover two wards- The Carona ward (621 members) and the Cieniga ward (452 members). Holy cow that's a lot of people! The Corona ward is in a community with a really really good school system so a lot of young family have started moving there. This is fantastic because new people in the neighborhoods means it's easy for members to do missionary work. Our Bishops are both really really missionary minded which helps A TON! There is also a brand new chapel being built that the whole community- members and non-members- are excited to see so this is pretty much an amazing place to be right now. I feel SOOO blessed. It means that there is never time to breath. Work work and more work! Love it! Story time. Christmas sacraments are so amazing! In both sacraments they had the choirs perform pretty much the whole time. At the end of Corona's sacrament meeting everyone either stayed in their seats or bolted for dear life. Sister Charles and I were so confused. Then the Choir director stands up and starts giving the whole ward a choir practice. We starting seeing a song and then she would stop us half way through the first line and give us instruction on what to fix. It took 20 minutes to get through one song. After we asked a member and they said that woman really wants our ward to be powerful singers so that the spirit can be stronger in our sacraments....Sister Charles asked me if that's an Arizona thing. NO! hahaha kotos for that woman for teaching the whole ward how to sing! You all better have seen the He is the Gift video by now! Normally the mission would all get together on Christmas a celebrate together but President Passey decided to change that and just have a little devotional as zones the week before. Ours was on Saturday. The whole devotional was about He is the Gift. In the video we are invited to DISCOVER, EMBRACE, AND SHARE the gift. We talked about how in the Christmas story everyone taking part discovered, embraced, and then shared which lead the next person to discover, embrace, then share. President Passey invited all of us to read the Book of Mormon between now and Easter and focus on just one topic or question. I want to invite all of you to do the same! Think of one topic just one and discover, embrace and share what you learned! I'm excited to get started! I just finished the Book of Mormon again so the invitation was perfect timing! By the way! We live with members in a separate part of the house and I love it! Yesterday a ton of people invited us to eat with them breakfast lunch and dinner on Christmas! I feel so blessed to be part of this area! We are very spoiled! Merry Christmas everyone! I love you so much! Please remember what Christmas is all about. It's about the birth of our savior. Everything we have is thanks to him. Don't forget what he did for us! His life was everything. His life was so full of love and giving. I am grateful for the knowledge that I have of this gospel. I know the church is true. I know that anyone can discover embrace and share the truth. MERRY CHRISTMAS I CAN'T WAIT TO CALL YOU IN JUST 3 DAYS. I'm not going to lie...I'm a little nervous. -Sister Barton